


Celestial

by xchasingmoonlightx



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blood Magic, Consensual Blood Consumption, Death Eaters, Dumb teenagers being dumb, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Fluff, HEA, I have a crush on Blaise's mom, Illustrations, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Mutual Pining, NSFW Art, Reads like a high school dramady (because it is one), Romance, Shameless Smut, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:47:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 69,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28321116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xchasingmoonlightx/pseuds/xchasingmoonlightx
Summary: "If she was fire, then all of her previous lovers had irrefutably been water – dousing her flames and drowning her intensity for fear of burning alive. But Lucius? He was gasoline that proudly and recklessly poured into her and encouraged her blazing inferno.They were not the antithesis of one another; they didn't take from each other or look to only serve themselves. Rather, they fed into the sensation, fanned one another's proverbial flames, and encouraged the other to engulf themselves into the blistering throes of combustion."—Lucius Malfoy and Narcissa Black are seventh and sixth year students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. They are both pure blood royalty in the Wizarding World, and this origin story follows them on their journey as students, lovers, and eventually, devoted followers of one of the most evil and powerful dark wizards of all time.Featuring illustrations by AvendellArt and Dralamy!
Relationships: Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Rodolphus Lestrange, Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy, Narcissa Black Malfoy/Nott Sr.
Comments: 33
Kudos: 123





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> Before reading, please keep a few things in mind:
> 
> 1\. This fic takes a lot of artistic liberties, and the timeline strays from canon!
> 
> 2\. All of the parents (and other recognizable names) in the HP universe are so spaced out in age that it became difficult to include familiar faces, and keeping track of tons of new OC's and their back stories would have resulted in a story that was far too long and time-consuming for me to write and for you to read. 
> 
> 3\. Finally, the most important (and probably most unpopular) detail: Narcissa Black is morally grey. The movies and most fanfictions have skewed her true character. In the books, Narcissa is just as much of a blood purist and Death Eater/Voldemort sympathizer as Lucius is at this point in their lives. End of. Period. Full stop.
> 
> Special thanks to @Bellaaa_a on Wattpad for beta reading.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features artwork by the fabulous and amazing AvendellArt. Their work can be found on Instagram and Tumblr.

> I asked Persephone,
> 
> "How could you grow to love him?  
> He took you from flowers to a kingdom where not a  
> single living thing can grow."
> 
> Persephone smiled,
> 
> "My darling, every flower on your earth withers  
> What Hades gave me was a crown made for the  
> immortal flowers in my bones."
> 
> -Nikita Gill-

* * *

As the golden hues of dawn slowly crept upon the canvas of the year anew at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the average student could be found still nestled in bed, lackadaisically dreaming as the rays of the sun gently caressed the castle.

Narcissa and Bellatrix Black were already awake inside the girls' dormitories in Slytherin house, and Narcissa was obsessively fussing over her sister's thick and luscious hair. It was Bella's last first day, after all; and she wanted to make sure her that eldest sister made the most of it.

Recently, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black had been forced to face an internal, familial rift, to the likes of which they'd never seen before– Narcissa's and Bellatrix's middle sister, Andromeda, wrote her family a letter of the foulest admission.

"Our bloody sister has gone off the deep end," Bellatrix sleepily grumbled as Narcissa gently separated a knot in her curly, raven mane. "I still can't believe she's ran off with that filthy mudblood boy."

Narcissa nodded empathetically as she listened to her sister, while she silently celebrated another knot coming loose. "Perhaps she'll come around," she thought aloud, "there's no way he'll keep her interest for very long."

"But then what, Cissy?" Bellatrix's voice grew belligerent. "She's already dropped out of school, she broke mum and dad's heart, she–"

"Then let her be a traitor, Bella," Narcissa interrupted her sister with a cool, unbothered air. "It's as simple as burning her off of our tapestry. If she wishes to choose a destitute mudblood over her family, then so be it." Her voice was calm and gentle when she spoke to her eldest sister, and even though she was the youngest of the three Black sisters, she always had an incredibly warm, nurturing aura about her when it came to her family.

"I'd rather die alone," Bella drawled as she raised the back of her left hand to her forehead in a dramatic motion. "I'm still stunned that the man had the gall to even approach Andromeda in the first place–" she used a forefinger to wipe away a lipstick smudge, "–most of these men that are worth anything are too intimidated to approach us."

The younger sister rolled her eyes at Bellatrix waxing philosophical. "Speak for yourself, Bella," she gently reminded her.

An impish smile slid across the elder sister's lips as they made eye contact in the mirror. "Oh, silly me, how could I forget about you and Mister Nott?"

Over the Summer, Thomas Nott had approached their father, Cygnus Black, about the possibility of courting Narcissa. Initially, he wasn't fond of the idea of his youngest daughter becoming romantically involved with the seventh-year Slytherin, but after the turmoil that Andromeda left rippling in her wake, Cygnus and Druella suddenly warmed up to the idea of their daughter dating a fellow member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

Thomas was a tall, broad, and intelligent young man. His features were angular and his skin was fair, however, most of the girls in Slytherin were most taken by his quick wit and his wavy, brown coif that looked to be the color of the finest Italian espresso.

Initially, Narcissa was pleased by the proposal. It only seemed fitting to her that she, as the princess of Slytherin house, became an item with another wealthy pure blood. And even though Bellatrix would never admit it out loud, Narcissa could easily tell that her sister was jealous.

It was a rather advantageous relationship, to say the least.

However, as the weeks pressed on, the icy blonde Black sister grew to realize that the gentle, boyish charms of her suitor hadn't quite warmed on her in the way she thought they would. Despite this, being the traditionalists that they were, they pursued their relationship from a social standpoint.

It was no secret that most pure bloods married out of social and political obligation, and it certainly wasn't uncommon for their marriages to be arranged by their families. Sure, there were plenty of 'successful' arranged marriages, but even the ones that didn't result in the husband and wife eventually falling for each other didn't matter. Divorce was never an option.

Still, it didn't take long for Narcissa and Thomas to realize that they weren't a perfect fit emotionally. Thomas was plucky and vivacious– a successful and regaled member of the Slytherin Quidditch team. Narcissa, on the other hand, was an old soul; prim, conservative, and not a single hair out of place at any time. She was the textbook definition of nobility and centuries of generational wealth.

But none of this deterred them from playing the part of a happy, perfect, pure-blooded couple– much to the ire of the other students in their house that admired both of them from afar, silently wishing they could be in Narcissa's and Thomas' shoes.

Once Cissy's task of taming Bellatrix's hair was completed, they both shrugged their school robes on and started toward the stairs of the Slytherin Common Room. The iconic colors of emerald, silver, and ebony were splashed across the prominent textures of leather, wood, glass, and metal throughout the room. It smelled of antique books, oakmoss, expensive cologne, and perhaps if you lingered into the early hours of the morning, the faintest hint of tobacco or absinthe. 

As the sisters stepped through the common room exit and into the main corridor, well on their way to Narcissa's first class, Bellatrix couldn't help but pry.

"Continuing on the topics blood traitors and boys," she giggled to herself, arching a sculpted eyebrow in anticipation of the response she was sure to provoke. "Should I be worried about the rumor of you and Bilius Weasley?"

She nearly lost her composure at her sister's accusation. She blinked in disbelief, her wispy eyelashes fluttering like a hummingbird's wings, and she cleared her throat.

Before she could respond, she was met with a knowing smirk as Bellatrix laid a comforting hand on Narcissa's shoulder. Just as Bella was about to apologize for the visceral reaction that she caused, her eyes widened as large as porcelain saucers when she saw who was approaching from behind Narcissa at a rapid pace.

A flash of freckles and ginger hair bolted toward them, and even though it was only half past eight in the morning on a Monday, he already reeked of poor quality whiskey. Whether it was fresh, or remnants of Gryffindor's 'Welcome Back' party from the previous night remained to be seen. Perhaps, and it was a rather strong possibility, it was a mixture of both.

He lunged forward and grabbed Narcissa's shoulders from behind, pulling her back against his chest as he craned his neck forward and planted a cold, chapped kiss on her cheek before scampering off like the rat bastard he was. Over his shoulder, he incoherently greeted the two girls, but it was undoubtedly something along the lines of "you ladies are the perfect cure for a headache!" before he disappeared around the corner again.

If it hadn't been for Bella standing in front of her, Narcissa would have lost her balance from the unexpected violation of her personal space.

Looking nonplussed, the young blonde quickly recovered and regained her balance with the aid of her sister as she straightened out the wrinkled shoulders of her charcoal grey cardigan with her palms. "And these are the types of people that Dromeda wishes to associate with," she mumbled to herself, and yet loud enough for Bella to hear if she so wished. "It's always the blood traitors making fools of themselves."

Bella smirked at Cissy's not-so-revelational observation, but the pleasant, upturned corners of her mouth quickly dropped into a scowl as she reached forward to pluck a fiery red hair off of her sister's shoulder. "Even the common half-blood has the sense to not act like total blabbering tits," she opined. "It's not a wonder these mudbloods rush into this school thinking they can lay claim on families like ours when our very own kind act like him."

Cissy chuckled. "Don't fool yourself, sister," the corridor suddenly filled with a rush of students now embarking on their journey to navigate to their first classes, "families like the Weasley's aren't our kind."

Appearing entertained by her baby sister's astute observation, she reached forward and engaged her in a brief, but tight hug. "This is your stop, yeah?" She asked Narcissa as she pointed her spindly thumb in the direction of a rather unassuming looking oak door.

She hugged back. "Yes, Advanced Potions," Cissy confirmed, "and yours?"

"Divination," Bella answered in an uninspired voice as she examined her nails.

Neither sister felt the need to wish the other one luck. They were both intelligent, well-rounded students, and tended to lead in the top percentages of their classes.

They parted with a warm wave to one another, and a promise to meet in the Great Hall at dinner time.

Narcissa gave both of her shoulders one final, brisk sweep with her delicate palms to rid herself of any unsightly wrinkles or, Salazar forbid, any rogue, homely red hairs.

As she advanced into the dim, musky classroom and navigated through the tables, she found a home at a seat in the front row of the class, but off to the far left side in an attempt to separate herself from the slackers that would position themselves in the back row, as well as the overly vexatious Gryffindors that sat front-and-center, whom had more gumption than they did sense.

And as a wave of students that donned burgundy and gold uniforms came piling in, Narcissa silently scoffed as she thought to herself that perhaps her act of self-preservation was evanescent.

Professor Slughorn materialized from the back of the room just as the gaggle of Gryffindors were starting to get unruly. As usual, he was overtly pleasant, and his commands for the class to quiet down were less commands than they were suggestions. Nonetheless, he maintained a good reputation with his students, and most of them seemed more than happy to accommodate.

When he finally waddled to the front of the room, he offered everyone a smile as he scanned their faces, as if committing them to memory, and then his eyes halted on a lone Narcissa Black, whose petite stature was nearly enveloped by her desk and all of her potion brewing contents.

"Well, Miss Black, I trust that you haven't threatened to bite any of your potential desk mates?" The potions professor chuckled to himself.

"No, sir," she replied in an airy, song-like voice, "but I assure you that I can manage just fine without a partner."

He scanned the room once, "oh, I'm well aware, Miss Black," and twice more, searching for something, before glancing at the clock on the back wall. "We are waiting for one more student, but they should he here soon." He nodded, and then turned back to face the blackboard.

"Today, we will be making a rather challenging potion," his jovial tone was muffled against the blackboard as he scribbled away with a miniscule nub of chalk. "But seeing as this is my advanced class, I have every faith that you will all successfully complete it with time to spare!"

He stepped away from the board, and revealed his erratic script which said 'Draught of Peace' and a few key ingredients below it.

"Please take out your textbooks, and turn to chapter thirty-five, where you will find detailed instructions," his eyes jumped between students, taking stock of their expressions and perhaps looking for any questions or reservations. He finally settled on Narcissa. "Any questions?"

No one indicated any trouble.

"Very good! Begin!"

* * *

Although the Draught of Peace had a reputation for being difficult to the point of unmanageable, Narcissa prepared all of her ingredients with ease. Powdered moonstone, Unicorn horn, and porcupine quills, as well as Syrup of Hellebore and Valerian root. Simple enough, but it was adding them all together that proved to be the challenge.

While the recipe was straightforward enough, the real challenge presented itself when it came time to add them all together. Timing was everything with the Draught of Peace, and it was only then that Narcissa inwardly wished to herself that her partner had bothered to show up.

Honestly, who doesn't show up on the first day of class? Not only was it disrespectful to the professor and herself, but also to her fellow students. Anyone that had been less capable of concocting potions than she was ran the risk of hurting themselves or others around them. The decision to leave a student without a partner in this class was simply selfish and negligent at best.

In fact, she caught herself spitefully hoping for her missing partner to show up. Probably another senseless Gryffindor. She quietly sighed to herself as she painstakingly added more powdered Unicorn horn with one hand and stirred slowly with the other.

Her mislaid partner should consider himself, or herself, lucky that Narcissa tended to keep her opinions and emotions to herself. Had it been Bellatrix in her current position, the poor, unsuspecting partner would come strolling into an annoyed fury.

Manners were something that Cygnus and Druella Black had instilled in their daughters from an early age, and manners just so happened to extend into respect for others, and her partner's absence was growing more and more disrespectful as time crept–

"I'm terribly sorry for my tardiness," a warm, velvety voice streamed past her shoulder. "I hope I can make it up to you."

Narcissa paused from her manual stirring, drawing her wand to bewitch the ladle to stir on it's own volition. She turned in her seat to assess the identity of her ill-timed classmate, and she was surprised at who she saw. In fact, she had been wrong.

This wasn't the arrogant Gryffindor that she had expected. He wasn't some random half-blood that lacked basic home training, and nor was he a misconducted pure blood that desperately needed a refresher course on their etiquette classes.

"Lucius Malfoy," he loomed over her, tall in stature and generous in charm as he extended a hand for her to shake in introduction. "You're Narcissa Black, is that correct?"

He was certainly not bereft of charm or good looks. In fact, he was regarded as one of the most attractive young men in the whole school. It was rare for student dalliances to blend between houses lines, but there was no denying that there wasn't a shortage of girls from all four houses vying for his attention.

Although displeased with his tardiness, Narcissa was always one to keep up appearances and remain even-handed in her tone.

She met his large palm with hers, and while most would form a concise shake, he seemed to hold hers for only a blink longer than anticipated.

"Yes, you're correct," she replied, offering him a small smile before turning back and resuming her Draught of Peace.

The thing about Lucius Malfoy, she thought to herself, was that he was somewhat of an enigma within Hogwarts. It was common knowledge that the Malfoys were of similar social and economic standing as the Blacks– aristocratic, respectable, enviable. No, they were not dissimilar at all.

And yet, it was not lost on most people that the sole Malfoy never crossed paths with the numerous Blacks.

He was an excellent student, notorious for his work ethic and academic pursuits, and even though he was the handsome and charming seventh-year Prefect for Slytherin house, he was notoriously private and kept a small circle of friends.

One of which was Thomas Nott.

"I hate to continue being a pest," the corner of his mouth ticked up into an unfairly charming smile, revealing a sliver of his impossibly white, straight teeth. He sunk down into the seat next to her as he rolled up the sleeves of his starched uniform shirt, "but I was wondering if I could borrow your knife? I seem to have forgotten mine in the dorms."

Narcissa felt a self-satisfied smile threaten to quirk onto her lips. She had been right. Of course she was right.

"You know, Mister Malfoy," she led with a serious tone, but her smile threatened to give her away at any moment. "It's very unbecoming of a Prefect to arrive tardy on the first day of classes, and unprepared."

He took her increasingly coy tone as an attempt at flattery, and in response, he hadn't allowed his smirk from earlier to fall quite yet. As far as he knew, she was flirting with him just like any other girl he ever spoke with.

But what he didn't know was that Narcissa Black had every intention of treating him no differently than any other student she would have been paired with. The Black name was older than the Malfoy name, and their fortune was larger. As far as she was concerned, he should have been the one that was chuffed to be paired with her.

"Unbecoming?" He echoed back to her as he took the knife she was handing him.

She nodded non-committally, her crystalline gaze fixed to the cauldron in front of her.

"Well, Miss Black," he cast his quicksilver eyes down to the desk and casually started cutting up more Valerian root. "Hopefully it's the only thing about me that you'll find unbecoming."


	2. II

As the first four weeks of school flew by, Lucius Malfoy kept a close eye on his mate's girl. Typically, Lucius wasn't the type to covet what wasn't his- especially when the covetee in question was taken by a close friend.

However, there was no denying that he maintained a latent arrogance about him, and it wasn't that he was genuinely interested in Narcissa; he just assumed that like most girls in fourth year and above, she was interested in him.

He saw her quietness in class as a form of meek shyness. He heard her passive remarks about his 'unbecoming' behaviors as a style of flirtation. He viewed her displays of intellect as a method of trying to impress him.

He found it quite charming.

He found _her_ quite charming.

The fact was, was that as the days trudged along, and the amount of potions that they brewed in class together became numerous, they fell into a certain comfortability with one another. He would say something cheeky, and she would reliably return with a passive insult that could have been interpreted as a compliment by anyone of lesser intelligence.

It was almost like a game of cat and mouse to them, except they both thought of themselves as the cat and the other as the mouse.

Narcissa Black and Lucius Malfoy, despite 'officially' introducing themselves at the beginning of term, had always known of each other. They had invariably existed in the periphery of their families' elite social circles, and it seemed like every pure-blooded witch or wizard in Britain simply assumed that the sole heir of the Malfoy name would become betrothed to one of the Black sisters.

And it was a fair assumption, indeed- especially now that Lucius was of the legal wizarding age and due to graduate in the Spring. Why wouldn't the two oldest, most powerful, and wealthiest families combine? As they both knew, arranged marriages for Sacred Twenty-Eight descendents were damn near expected.

It was almost... offensively predictable, and if either of them had one single pet peeve, it would have been predictability. They were both much too prideful for that.

As the month of September came to a close, the general chitchat that buzzed amongst the student body instantly deviated from the usual teenage mundanity, and turned into another beloved pastime of schoolyard gossip: the All Hallow's Eve Ball.

It was rare for Slytherins to cross the invisible, yet indisputable lines between the houses. However, certain exceptions could be made when it came to the silent honor amongst pure bloods, and the exception for Bellatrix and Narcissa came in the form of a sixth-year Gryffindor by the name of Alice Fortescue.

Petite, meek, and reticent, the sisters found themselves wondering how Alice managed to be a Gryffindor at all- but it was no matter in the end. Her blood status, paired with her generally submissive nature, meant that she possessed the perfect personality that meshed with Bellatrix's overt mania and Narcissa's haughty demeanor.

With fresh fruit, chocolate, and bottles of sparkling cider strewn across a thick, pale yellow picnic blanket that belonged to Alice, the three girls were engaged in the throes of discussing the hearsay that they overheard in the hallways surrounding the ball.

"I could have sworn I saw Rodolphus sneaking peeks at you in the corridor on the way to charms, Bella," Narcissa teased her sister before giggling and biting down on a plump strawberry.

It was an unseasonably warm and sunny day for the first of October in Scotland, and it seemed as though nearly every student was taking advantage of the courtyard and the surrounding plains of greenery that were slowly darkening with the changing season.

It was pleasant and peaceful, and it gave the girls the perfect excuse to partake in Bella's favorite teenage past time: gossip.

"He's alright," she rolled her eyes at her sister. "Although, I'm afraid I may be too much for him to handle-" she took a sip of her sparkling cider, which she had undoubtedly bewitched into something a bit stiffer- "and most men are too fragile to know how to handle me."

Alice blushed as she pushed a piece of honey blonde hair from her cheek. There were times when Bellatrix became a bit too raucous in her implicities, but Alice never allowed herself to denote anything other than comfortability in the topics at hand.

Although, Bellatrix rarely had any issues seeing straight through her façade. Alice was known for being wholesome and virtuous, and honestly, Bella liked watching her fight to keep from squirming with discomfort.

"Do you want to know who I think would really like to be at the full submission of a woman?" Bella's onyx-hued eyebrow twitched up as a devious smirk played on her lips. She paused, possibly waiting for her two picnic mates to entertain her with a verbal response, but their eyes were already fixated on her, and that was good enough. "Arthur Weasley."

Narcissa pretended to stifle a dramatic gag at the sound of his name, and Alice lagged behind her reaction before mustering a quiet giggle.

"You couldn't possibly be considering asking a Weasley to the ball," Cissy chuckled. "That's not even funny, Bella. That feral looking girlfriend of his is liable to sic herself on you."

Bellatrix erupted into a fit of laughter at the thought. The Weasley's and their ilk were precisely what Druella warned each of her daughters about before they each started their first years- loud, annoying, dimwitted blood traitors. Thus, everytime one of the Black sisters referred to a Weasley, it would result in them spitting out the name as if it was an Unforgivable Curse.

Alice forced a chuckle to pass through her roseate lips, but at that point, the joke was over and she was laughing into an awkward silence. "Do you really like Arthur?" She pointedly asked Bellatrix, a thin, honey-colored eyebrow threatening to skew with disbelief. "He and Molly Prewett have practically been exclusive with each other since the night they got sorted in first year."

Bella's face twisted into a disgusted, genuinely disgusted scowl, and if there hadn't been a roguish anger flashing across her dark eyes, she would have almost looked ill from the accusation.

"Why would anyone really like Arthur Weasley?" Narcissa echoed Alice's words back to her, whose usual, icy expression looked like a strange cross between offended and thoroughly entertained.

"He's a disgrace to all pure bloods," Bellatrix tacked on to the heels of her sister's rhetorical question. She took another swig of her suspiciously dark cider.

Alice looked down at her plate of fruit, pausing to consider what her friends had just told her. Assessing how casually they committed to their accusations.

"Why is that?" She asked the sisters plainly.

Bellatrix let out a humorless chuckle while Narcissa's lips parted in astonishment. They exchanged a glance with one another that seemed to linger for the length of a single heartbeat before their eyes shot back to Alice.

Narcissa's clear, song-like voice grew incredulous. "He's obsessed with muggles and their technology-"

"-and the sooner that whole family renounces their Sacred Twenty-Eight status, the better!" Bella completed Cissy's thought with a huff before tacking on a final thought of her own: "and the same goes for that insufferable slag, Molly Prewett!"

The air was now thick with an awkward discomfort, and it served as a reminder to Alice as to why she chose to remain quiet when the topic of blood traitors came up. While she was a pure blood herself, she saw no harm in peacefully coexisting with muggles and muggle-borns. Nonetheless, she conceded to the thought and silently reminded herself that her friends were most likely raised in an old-fashioned way.

Perhaps they'd come around soon.

A master of recomposing her cordial temperament, Narcissa calmly lowered her fruit plate down to the blanket before returning back to her friend to pick up where they had left off; just before the topic had been derailed.

Narcissa couldn't help but think how unladylike it was of Alice to thwart the original topic at hand, but most pure bloods prided themselves on their 'honor amongst thieves,' and so, this time, she was happy to look past the discrepancy.

All the while, Bellatrix silently made a mental note to not allow Alice to speak like that again. It was a disgraceful ideology to have, and the fact that Alice seemed so quick to defend Arthur Weasley made her blood run cold from... anger? Contempt? Disdain? She didn't care what the feeling was, but she knew she never wanted to feel it again.

Bellatrix simply chalked it up as a minor act of rebellion- but she filed away the memory for a later time.

Now sounding suspiciously jovial, Narcissa turned back to Alice to ask her the same question that Bella was asked not long ago.

"What about you, Alice?" She coaxed her friend to answer, "Who were you hoping would take you to the ball?"

Her amber eyes briefly expanded to the size of saucers as her complexion blanched. She allowed a few nervous giggles to escape before responding, all the while Bellatrix and Narcissa exchanged another fast glance.

The color returned to Alice's face, and the blood seemed to settle into a rosy hue in her cheeks as she inhaled deeply. "F- Frankie," she admitted quietly, almost too quietly.

The sisters exchanged a third glance.

"Frankie," Bellatrix echoes, an amused smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

"Frank Longbottom?" Narcissa clarifies.

Alice giggles, nods shyly. "We've been acquaintances for a while, and I think- I..." she starts playing with the cuff of her Gryffindor robes. "I like him, and I think he might like me, too."

"Well-" Bella's arched brows nearly raised to her hairline in surprise as she began to tease their friend, but Narcissa cut in.

"We're happy for you," Cissy said as she fixed her blue gaze onto the blonde Gryffindor. "And it doesn't bear mentioning that his family are part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, so you couldn't have done better for yourself when forming your little crush."

Alice's brows knitted together, looking a bit nonplussed. "Well, thank you, Cissa." It came out as more of a question than a statement, but Narcissa took it as such anyhow.

"If you'd like to, I could say something to him," Narcissa gave her friend a sly look. "I could drop a hint and let him know that you might want to go to the ball- but I'll make him think it was his idea!"

She pauses to consider the offer, still persistent in rolling and unrolling the cuff of her sleeve as a nervous tic. After a moment, she nods her head the same as before, only this time a bit more enthusiastic, smiling.

With each of the three girls' lips turned into smiles for entirely different reasons, they concluded their little picnic and started back toward the castle to resume their remaining classes for the rest of the day.

* * *

The following morning, Narcissa walked alone on her way to Advanced Potions. Although usually accompanied by her sister, Bellatrix slipped out of the girls' dormitories earlier that morning, saying she had to get to the library before anyone else so that she could 'take care of something.' Initially, Cissy thought nothing of it when her mind was still clouded with sleep, but as she went through the morning ritual of preparing herself for the day, she started to think that the interaction had been a bit odd.

Nonetheless, Narcissa had other matters to think about. She chalked up her sister's shiftiness as an excuse to go meet up with a paramour of some sort. Bellatrix had never been one for monogamous, romantic relationships like other girls her age, but she was shameless in bragging about not passing down the opportunity to have someone worship and admire her, even if for only half-hour increments.

No, today called for much more pressing matters to focus on.

Narcissa had to put in a good word for her friend with a rather advantageous, pure-blooded young man. She recalled seeing his face on the opposite end of the classroom in Advanced Potions, and even though they never so much as acknowledged each others' existences, she was determined to make a good impression.

Frank Longbottom was a tall, lanky, chocolate-haired seventh-year who most likely felt just as awkward as he looked. Though Narcissa never paid him much mind, other than a passing glance if he happened to be standing near her general vicinity, she saw him now as they approached the door to the potions classroom, coming from opposite directions.

"Mister Longbottom!" She called out to him, waving her perfectly manicured, dainty fingers in the air for his attention.

His dark brown eyes, which were insecurely cast down to the floor as his arms were tightly wrapped around a stack of textbooks, tore away and met hers. He didn't seem like much of a Gryffindor either, based on his posture, and it suddenly made sense as to why his and Alice's mutual attraction, well, made sense.

Frank's steady gait came to an abrupt halt, and his chin appeared to go a bit slack when he saw Narcissa calling for his attention. He paused to stare at her, looking panicked, and then jerked to look over his shoulder. He considered that he was mistaken and Narcissa Black was perhaps calling for a different Longbottom.

But then he shook his head when the realization came crashing into him- he was the only Longbottom in the whole school, and that one of the most gorgeous and yet inaccessible girls he'd ever seen was actually trying to get his attention.

"H- hi- Miss B- Black?" He managed to choke out as she closed the distance between the two of them with a warm, and somehow oddly mischievous smile. Ah, she could definitely see why Alice and Frank made sense.

"Frank Longbottom, right?" She asked him as she extended a delicate, pale hand, knowing fully well who he was, and completely aware that his hands were full and he was in no position to shake hers back. Instead, he painfully, awkwardly leaned to the side and touched his elbow to her fingertips with an uncomfortable laugh.

She felt herself nearly cringe from secondhand embarrassment as she returned her hand to the strap of her bag on her shoulder, making a more conscious effort to maintain her smile to him.

"H- how can I help you, M- Miss Black?" He choked again, his eyes snapping back down to the floor to avoid any further contact.

She forced herself to chuckle in attempt to relieve the stiff exchange. "I have a friend who is interested in you asking her to the All Hallow's Eve Ball," she started to explain, "and I wanted to see if you were interested in-"

"L- Lucius-" Longbottom quivered again, looking past Narcissa's shoulder.

"Sorry?" Her brows furrowed and her smile waned. She quickly realized that he was looking right past her, so she trained her gaze on his line of sight as she turned her head and saw the tall, platinum-haired Prefect looming behind her.

For a moment, she felt visceral relief to have a more elegantly-mannered person join the conversation.

"Miss Black, Longbottom," he extended a cordial nod to them both before looking back to Narcissa and offering her a smirk. "Miss Black, I was hoping to speak with you before class began, if that was alright with you?"

She returned his smirk with a playful expression of her own. "And why is that, Mister Malfoy? Did you conveniently forget your supplies in the dorms again?"

Lucius chuckled, thoroughly impressed by not only her quick wit, but her nerve to engage in a bit of banter with him.

"Actually, I've become a bit more steadfast in carefully preparing for my classes since our initial meeting," his silver eyes glinted down to meet hers, and for a moment, he swore he could feel himself swimming in them. "No, I was hoping to speak with you about-"

"S- sorry, Narcissa," Frank interrupted Lucius with a nervous interjection, his knuckles now white in the firm grasp around his school books that were fervently pressed against his sweatervest. "I think we should be getting to class now. What were you asking m- me about the b- ball?"

For the first time since Lucius materialized next to them, his smirk fell as his eyes darkened and broke away from Narcissa's to read Frank's expression.

His left brow twitched for a fraction of a second before returning to look back down at Narcissa before repainting himself with a smug look. "I apologize," he insisted in a genuine tone. "It seems as though I've interrupted a rather important conversation. I do hope you'll both forgive me."

Without a second to allow either of them to react, he turned on his heel and disappeared into the classroom. Frank started to follow suit, but Narcissa grabbed the hood of his robes as he passed her, stopping him abruptly in his tracks.

"W- we have to-" he started to protest, pointing in the direction of the door.

She let go of his hood and raised her hand to her temple, eyes closed, and visibly annoyed at the encounter that just took place. "This will only take two seconds, Longbottom," she interrupted him in a plain, unamused tone. "Alice Fortescue wants you to ask her to the ball, and I told her I would let you know."

His eyes widened, not dissimilar to the way Alice's did when she was also surprised by something. He then blushed just as brightly as her, too.

"That's all I wanted to tell you," Narcissa said as she, too, turned on her heel much like Lucius did toward the classroom.

Frank lagged behind, now frozen in place with a rather dumb looking grin plastered to his face.

* * *

Potions was particularly uncomfortable today. Not because the material was challenging, or because the Gryffindor half of the room was behaving especially rowdy, but because the friendly, sarcastic banter that she and Lucius spent weeks mutually cultivating was noticeably lacking.

Nearly three-quarters of the way into Professor Slughorn's lecture, Narcissa felt a piece of folded parchment slip underneath her hand as she scribbled away with her quill, intently focused on what the professor had to say.

She peeked over at it with a confused look on her face, and then her eyes flitted up to Lucius. His elbow was resting on the desk, with his chin in his hand, and his fingers covering his mouth, hiding a smirk. Although his eyes were trained on their ranting instructor, he felt her looking at him.

She set her quill down and unfolded the paper.

_How'd it go?_

No less confused than she was when the paper arrived, she peered back over at Lucius, who was now looking back at her. "What?" She mouthed to him, and he playfully rolled his eyes in return. She passed the paper back to him, not writing a response.

A moment later, he passed another.

_You asked Longbottom_   
_to the Halloween ball._   
_Did he agree to go with you?_

She humorlessly chuckled, her suspicions confirmed. She didn't know why it bothered her that Lucius thought she was going to the ball with Frank, especially considering that she was dating Thomas, but it did. And she didn't like that it did.

She quickly scribbled down her response on the back of the scrap of parchment and passed it back to him.

_A less-than-courageous_   
_Gryffindor needed a favor._   
_He's not my type._

When he read the reply, he peeked back at her to discover that she was looking rather smug with herself.

He tore off another scrap of parchment.

_What is your type, then?_

She quietly giggled, and suddenly, neither of them had any interest in the lecture.

_Not Gryffindors._

Lucius thought quietly to himself for a moment, and when he finished penning his return banter, he folded the parchment back up and started to pass it toward her again.

Until it was intercepted by Professor Slughorn.

"Now, what seems to be the problem here?" Slughorn asked facetiously, his voice now booming louder than it had been when he was instructing. He retrieved a small monocle from a pocket in his robes, and as he raised it to his eye in his left hand, he squinted to read the parchment he now possessed in his right hand.

Narcissa refused to let her classmates become privy to the embarrassment that was pooling in her stomach, so she kept her expression stoic and unbothered. Lucius, however, casually leaned back into his seat, blond eyebrow raised, and a devilish smirk firmly painted on his lips.

Slughorn scrunched his nose as he struggled to read the note through his monocle, but then took a deep breath before he read aloud.

"It's too bad that Prefects will be on chaperone duty, otherwise I would have asked you myself."

Several of the Gryffindors burst into laughter, and a few of them wolf-whistled across the room.

Slughorn flipped the piece of parchment over as if to make sure that there weren't any additional scribblings on the back before dropping it back down on the desk and returning his monocle to his pocket. He looked thoroughly pleased with himself.

"And, may I asked why this note was more important than my lecture on the properties of Wolfsbane?" He directed the question at Lucius, whose smug grin hadn't faltered once.

"Professor," Lucius started with a cleverly condescending tone, "surely you must realize that our hormonal teenage minds have a hard time focusing on school work when something as monumental as a dance is just around the corner."

She fought to maintain her composure, feeling her cheeks threatening to turn pink at the implication in her deskmate's cheeky reply, but when she peeked up at the professor, she saw that he was looking impossibly red and embarrassed as well.

He was mortified by his student's confident answer, and as soon as he heard the word 'hormonal,' he instantly regretted asking in the first place.

"Isn't she dating Thomas Nott?" A Gryffindor girl postulated from across the expanse of the classroom.

"Isn't Nott one of Lucius' best mates?" A Slytherin hypothesized from a few desks behind them.

"She must be like her sister, then!" Another Gryffindor accused.

"Alright, alright! That's enough, children!" Slughorn announced in exasperation. He turned back to Miss Black and Mister Malfoy, wagging a finger at them before resuming the lecture, "I understand the developmental importance of social gatherings at your age, but please discuss personal matters on your own time and not during class!"

Just as class was about to end, Narcissa snuck another glance over at Lucius, who was now fully focused on the lecture, but still had a smirk firmly planted on his lips.

As much as she didn't want to admit it, she found it quite charming.

She found _him_ quite charming.


	3. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The following chapter features an illustration by AvendellArt. More of their work can be found on Instagram and Tumblr. Do not repost.

Thomas Nott's invitation for Narcissa to accompany him to the All Hallow's Eve Ball was rather unceremonious.

It was mid-week before the dance, and while Narcissa had already picked out her dress and started planning her hairstyle, she waited quietly for Thomas to officially ask her. Sure, they were already dating exclusively, and Thomas had felt that meant there was no need to be formal about it, but Narcissa felt exactly the opposite. She knew that she was a woman to be savored and adored, and she'd rather go with her sister than go with a boyfriend who was foolish enough to not ask her.

It was a dark and chilly Wednesday afternoon when Narcissa went down to the quidditch pitch to meet Thomas after practice, as usual. She was used to the routine of quietly lying in wait as her boyfriend finished his chummy conversations with his mates, and even though the weather was glum, she always looked forward to walking back to the common room with him at the end of a long day.

During her walk down to the pitch, she was usually accompanied by Juniper Parkinson, a fifth year Slytherin with a twin brother, also in our house. She had long, wavy, jet black hair that reached the small of her back, and her features were pinched and dainty. Almost fairy-like in every way, she seemed to float along Narcissa, and while Narcissa herself was undeniably elegant and ethereal, Juniper had an otherworldly aura about her, as well.

"So how did Thomas ask you?" She opened the conversation with what should have been a neutral topic, and her voice was sweet and carefree.

"Ask me what, June? You mean how did he ask me to the ball?" Narcissa inquired. Juniper was pleasant enough to be around, and she was always kind, but she did have a rather strange way of approaching conversation. It was mostly like she thought aloud and the rest of the world struggled to catch on. However, there was a sweetness to her that kept everyone interested in the things she had to say.

"Of course!" She enthused with a broad grin as she pulled the sleeves down on her woolen sweater, shielding her hands from the crisp air. "It must have been terribly romantic!"

If only it was, June. If only it was.

"Thomas and I understand each other enough to not have to feel obligated to partake in such trivial customs," the blonde witch lied. "We've been together since the Summer, and as soon as the Ball was announced, we had a mutual understanding that we would be going together." She nodded, but whether it served to convince June or to convince herself remained to be seen.

When the boys all finally made their leave from the quidditch field, Juniper clung onto a stocky, auburn-haired Slytherin beater as if he were her life source. Even though their union came without a greeting, she giggled as though he'd just said the most devastatingly hilarious joke.

When Thomas approached Narcissa, he waved back at his teammates and then extended a hand to her. When she reached back, he raised the back of her hand to his lips and placed a soft kiss against her skin. "Darling," he greeted her, and rubbed the pad of his thumb across her knuckles as they started the trek back toward the castle.

On paper, Thomas was the ideal boyfriend. He was good looking, he came from a respectable family, he was an athlete, and even though he wasn't teeming with intellect, he managed to keep up with his grades just enough to participate in quidditch.

But he certainly had his faults.

He paid most of his attention to his friends and teammates, he didn't compliment her as much as she wished he would, and there were times when she caught him ogling other girls as they passed through the halls. At the start of their relationship, they'd dedicated Saturday evenings to act as their date night, but since the term started up again, she'd often find him halfway finished with his own bottle of Ogden's in the common room after a quidditch match.

At first, she thought that it was the price to pay for being involved in such an advantageous relationship, and she even convinced herself that all the good he offered outweighed the bad, and perhaps he would grow out of his boyish behaviors as they grew old together.

After all, he had been her first, and as traditional as they both were, this meant that she was with him for the long-haul.

But... seeing as Thomas thought that it was acceptable to mentally undress any vaguely attractive girl that spared him a passing glance in the corridors, Narcissa felt that her wandering thoughts about a certain platinum-haired Prefect were perfectly justified.

"So what color is your dress, Narcissa?" Juniper's head peeked over the shoulder of her stocky lover as they walked just a meter or so in front of them.

"Black, of course," she replied with a sly grin, raising a blonde eyebrow in a manner that indicated that the answer should have been obvious.

Thomas turned his head and looked down at her. "Dress? What for?"

Juniper's eyes widened in disbelief, and then her pupils kept darting back and forth between Narcissa and Thomas, as though she was waiting for the punchline.

"Yes, darling," Narcissa replied to him in a curt tone. "For the All Hallow's Eve Ball. Remember?"

But she didn't expect him to remember, because she was fairly certain he never knew about it in the first place. He possessed a rather unfortunate proclivity for being oblivious to anything that could be deemed as remotely 'girly.' At some point, his selective awareness had most certainly been intentional, but he'd gotten so good at it that it became second nature to him.

He paused for a moment, his eyes briefly giving out a hippogriff-in-headlights sort of expression, but then he stilled himself and reassured her with a smirk. "Of course I remember. I was only joking."

It took every ounce of Narcissa's resolve to not roll her eyes at him. No one could deny that Thomas Nott had plenty of redeeming qualities, but moments like this really begged the question if the good was actually worth the bad– traditions be damned.

* * *

"Well, I must say I'm surprised that you're still going with Thomas," Bellatrix reluctantly admitted across the room toward her sister.

It was the night of the All Hallow's Eve Ball, and the girls were in their dormitories, preparing for the evening ahead. Bellatrix was on her second redo with a tube of cranberry colored lipstick, and as she furiously wiped away yet another smudge, Narcissa began to worry that her sister's updo that she helped style was going to fall.

Narcissa turned away from the vanity to face her sister, who had now given up on the lipstick and started lacing her own corset in a floor-length mirror by her bed. "Why are you surprised?"

Bella met her sister's gaze in the reflection, giving her a humorless chuckle.

"He's my boyfriend," Cissy insisted. "Who else would I go with?"

This time, Bella's chuckle was brimming with humor. "I suppose you're the last to hear the rumors then, dear sister?"

"Rumors?"

"About you and a certain tall, pale blond seventh year," she replied with a flippant tone, her eyes back on her reflection as her fingertips plucked at the laces of her corset.

Narcissa fought a blush and rolled her eyes. "We're just potions partners," she stated in an indifferent tone as she added the final pins to her hair. "And it wasn't my choice, anyhow. I was the one that was perfectly content to not have a partner and work alone all year."

"Not from what I hear," a grin spread across the raven-haired beauty's lips, which were now only tinted with the color that she had since wiped away.

And what you heard is exactly correct, dear sister.

Narcissa wanted nothing more than to see the towering Malfoy heir waiting for her in the center of the dance floor.

In the span of less than thirty seconds, she had the whole night playing in her head. He'd take her hands and proudly spin her around. He'd give her his undivided attention, and genuinely listen to the things she had to say. He wouldn't spare a single glance toward his friends or any girls walking by, and as the music faded, perhaps he'd even proudly kiss her in front of their classmates.

The thought of the night with Lucius Malfoy coming to a close racked her subconscious, and Merlin, even if she had a hard time admitting it to herself, she wanted nothing more than for the evening to end in blond hair, tender lips, piercing silver eyes, possessive purple bite marks, and maybe even–

No.

She pushed away the thought. She was with Thomas, and she wasn't going to let herself get carried away with the thought of a lust-fueled evening with a man who probably only saw her as an object; while Lucius Malfoy didn't neccesarily have a reputation for being a serial offender of sleazy broom closet hookups between classes, she'd heard two girls comparing notes about their previous encounters with the Slytherin Prefect–

No. She halted her own thoughts again.

It doesn't matter what his dating history looks like, she continued to reason with herself. It doesn't matter, because it doesn't affect you. It will never be of your concern.

Because, while irrefutably imperfect, she had Thomas. Sure, he wasn't the most attentive lover, and he seemed to have this strange complex about not letting her take control like she'd always wanted... but he was good to her. On paper, their relationship made sense, and she would never want to do anything that would jeopardize her or her family's reputation.

"Oh, that is just gorgeous," Bellatrix announced toward her sister with a playfully indignant huff. "I don't remember that dress being in the sample sketches mum sent us!"

Narcissa's Hallow's Eve Ball gown was a floor-length and long-sleeved with a high neckline. The fabric was spun from the finest black chantilly lace, and the plunging, low back dipped right below the faint dimples at the base of her spine. Between her shoulder blades, hanging from a delicate chain, was a silver serpent made of metal which gave the illusion of it slithering down her back.

Her burgundy lips tugged up at the corner from her sister's reaction. "Perhaps she sent us two different portfolios– she didn't want us to pick the same thing on accident, yeah?"

Bellatrix rolled her eyes and looked down at her black, off-the-shoulder gown with flowy sleeves and a high slit up the leg.

"My dress has one thing yours doesn't, though!" She attempted to goad Narcissa with a sing-song voice as she stuck a creamy white leg though the slit, revealing a garter around her thigh. Nestled into the satin band was a red flask– within arm's reach at all times.

She giggled and gave her sister a knowing look. "Something tells me that isn't hot chocolate for the cold night."

Bella smirked back at her as she reached down for the flask and flicked the cap off. She took a swig and scrunched her nose at the taste before sliding it back into the black band.

"Now, quit avoiding the subject," she declared to her little sister. "How long until you leave Nott on his arse?"

"Pardon?"

Another scoff escaped Bella's lips. "You don't have to play the role of Saint around me, Cissy. We both know he's not nearly wealthy enough to realistically think that he can keep you in the long run."

"And have you forgotten that we have the largest fortune in the Wizarding World?" Cissy keenly reminded her.

The older sister smirked. "Not at all, which is exactly why we're more susceptible to getting taken advantage of. Do you think that mudblood that Andromeda is shagging actually loves her?"

Narcissa paused to consider the question.

"It's not just women who are galleon diggers, my sweet sister–"

"She does know that if she marries him, she'll be completely cut off from our fortune," Cissy thought aloud. "It wouldn't be smart for either of them– they say that love makes us do stupid things."

Both sisters nearly gagged on the word 'love' when in reference to their sister's tawdry affair with a piss-poor mudblood.

"If their relationship has taught us anything," Bellatrix continued her spiel, "it's that true love does not exist. At least not in our pure-blooded world."

* * *

It wasn't until Thomas Nott had arrived to the Great Hall with Narcissa on his arm that he realized he'd forgotten to get her any flowers.

A minor oversight, she thought. He still had plenty of time to redeem himself, and she had every intention of giving him that opportunity. Perhaps if he felt guilty enough, he'd let her take the reigns tonight– if that's where the night led, she reminded the voice in her head once more.

She could count on one hand how many times they'd been together, and while most young couples would be thrilled about touching their partner in any way that they could, it seemed that Narcissa and Thomas were two of a stubborn kind.

He led them both straight toward the pyramid of champagne flutes, undoubtedly full of only cider, and took two from the top. Whenever Narcissa took one of the flutes, his right hand reached for her left to hold it, and he clinked his glass against hers.

She offered him a rather pleased looking smile at the unexpected attention. As much as she didn't like to admit when she was wrong... She might have actually been wrong.  
Thomas, despite the flower debacle, had been so kind considerate of her all night so far. He engaged in conversation, he held her hand, and his eyes hadn't strayed a single ti–

She watched as they flittered past her shoulder, not once, but twice.

He had been in the middle of talking to her about something when she noticed it, because his voice trailed off.

Narcissa looked over her shoulder and followed his line of sight over toward a back corner of the room, where a small gathering of Prefects from each house were huddled up in the corner as they kept a watchful eye of the dance floor and food tables.

"Something wrong?" She asked in a gentle voice as she turned back to him. At least it wasn't a girl he was gawking at.

He shook his head, trance broken, and looked back down at her sweetly. "Nothing at all, darling," he whispered against her forehead as he pressed a single kiss into her hairline.

"Hey! Nott!"

Thomas turned his head in the direction of the voice calling his name.

"There you are!" It was a bustling and raucous group of boys that were unmistakably from the Slytherin quidditch team. "We were going outside to have a smoke, and we wanted to see if you..."

Narcissa stopped paying attention to their exchange. When the boys started talking, she knew all too well that the end wasn't going to be in sight for no less than ten minutes.

It was as if she had no control over her body as she felt her head turn back over her shoulder to sneak a peek of the small gathering of Prefects.

"Darling," she heard Thomas calling for her, breaking her attention from the silver-eyed flirt just as his eyes flickered to meet hers at the last possible second.

She blinked a few times to clear the distraction from her mind.

"The team and I are going outside for a moment. Will you be alright here alone?" He whispered down to her with a sly grin.

He would be leaving, and she was doing her damndest to fight off the voice in the back of her head that was telling her to run to meet her potions partner. But what for?! She nagged back at the little voice.

Thomas must have taken her expressionless silence as dissatisfaction, because he was smirking as he leaned down to brush his lips against her ear. "I'll make the wait worth your while later."

She blinked again and gave him a sweet smile and a nod. Her thought process was still fully occupied by the man that wasn't her boyfriend, and she figured it would be better if her actual boyfriend left her alone to mull it over. Perhaps she'd find her sister and avoid the subject entirely, which would be most preferable.

He pressed another kiss against her forehead, and in the breadth of a heartbeat, Thomas and his quidditch teammates were halfway to the exit.

Narcissa allowed herself to steal another glance at the Prefect huddle, telling herself one more look, and then I'll go find my sister, and that'll be the end of it.

But he wasn't standing there anymore. Although, she could swear that she smelled his cologne, and from nearly two months of being his potions partner, she would know that smell anywhere.

He smelled distinctly of bergamot, cedar, and–

"What are you looking for, Miss Black?" The velvety voice crept up against her ear like a breeze on a Summer night.

–White tea.

She could have jumped out of her skin from the unexpected greeting, and he must have been able to tell that he startled her based on his low chuckle.

"That's not very funny, Mister Malfoy," she attempted to stave off a giggle as she turned to face him. It was an easy task, seeing as it quickly dissipated the moment she looked up and saw his stormy eyes bearing into her, slightly creased from a mischievous grin.

"Asking you what you're looking for isn't funny?" He raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, even I could have told you that, Miss Black."

She crossed her arms and met his eyebrow with hers, and for a moment, it probably looked like they were an exact mirror of one another.

"If you must know," she returned to his inquiry, "my boyfriend just excused himself for a moment, so I was keeping an eye out in case he came back."

"Boyfriend?" Lucius echoed the word.

She gave him a smug nod. "Yes, my boyfriend. And he's only going to be a minute, so I don't think I'll be needing your chaperoning services for long."

Lucius let out another low chuckle as he pointed a finger off in the direction of the double doors. "Do you mean him?"

She looked to the back of the room and saw the quidditch team finally passing through the exit, each of them with a girl in hand– and in Thomas' hand was the arse of a brunette Ravenclaw.

Narcissa found herself blinking in disbelief again, and when an indignant scoff escaped her throat, the strange feeling dawned on her: any normal girl would be absolutely mortified right now, and probably on the verge of tears. But once she got over the initial incredulity, she felt...

Relieved.

She even laughed, and Lucius' eyes widened, looking as if he was suspicious that she'd lost her mind. He always assumed that she was raised in a home much like his own, where showing emotions meant showing weakness, and if he had to guess what was running through her head, he would have never suggested that it was anything laughable.

"Are you alright, Miss Black?" His silky voice turned into a concerned rumble. He reached his hand out to touch her shoulder.

"You have..." she broke stare away from the exit and returned to him again, laughter now quelled, to only be replaced with a rather breathless feeling that made impact the moment their eyes met again. "...no idea."

Lucius searched her icy blue gaze for any sign of faltering, but he was impressed to see that she, too, had a mastery of locking away any negative emotions. His inspecting gaze dropped down to the rosy hue of her cheeks, and continued following down her porcelain jaw, which led him to the supple curve of her lips.

And oh, Salazar, her lips. The voice in his head whispered to him. They were the color of the finest pinot noir he'd ever laid eyes on– cardinal in hue, resolutely complex, and profoundly seductive in every way. That deep shade of maroon felt like it was a glow from the inviting embers that she ignited against his dark, shadowy soul.

She watched him stare at her lips, and she reveled in the feeling of receiving the attention that she'd been vying for all along. This time was different though. It may not have been the attention from whom she originally wanted... but this was so much better.

"Are you alright, Mister Malfoy?" She whispered back to him.

His eyes glinted with the reflection of the Great Hall's candlelight as he peeled away his stare. He restraightened his spine, standing up stiffly as he smoothed out a non-existent wrinkle from his dress robes. "Yes, Miss Black," he cleared his throat, and his voice returned to it's usual business-like tone. "I was just–"

Narcissa entertained herself with the idea that perhaps he was nervous around her, which made her blush.

"Would you like to dance?" She interrupted whatever fictitious excuse that was about to tumble from his lips.

His eyebrow twitched up, and even though she could tell he was fighting away a smile, she saw the telltale signs at the corner of his mouth. "If that's what the lady desires, then it's hers."

As much of a cliche as it was, and they both loathed cliches, it felt like they had been flying.

It only made sense for a boy of his heritage to at least be a passable dance partner, but Lucius was so much more. He was light on his feet, he had an extensive arsenal of steps to keep things from becoming repetitive, he was an excellent conversationalist, but more than anything– he didn't look away from her once.

Neither of them would be able to tell you how much time they spent in each others' arms as they spun and swayed through the Great Hall. The crowd of students began to thin, and there was still no sign of Thomas or any of the other quidditch players.

Before long, it would be just the two of them, and even though it was unspoken, neither of them had any issue with that fact.

"Would you like to go for a walk outside?" Narcissa asked him. The cold night sky meant that there would be minimal clouds, and the school grounds would be lit up by the moon and stars.

"A walk?" He repeated, a sly look appearing on his face.

"That's what I said, yes," she replied with just a touch of more sarcasm to keep him in check.

Lucius chuckled as he pulled her into another spin. "What's outside at this time of night?"

Narcissa now mirrored his sly grin right back to him. "You'll have to come see. I want to show you something."


	4. IV

Narcissa took Lucius by the hand, tangling her fingers in his, and pulled him toward the exit of the Great Hall- appearances be damned. Thomas had the gall to leave the dance with another girl, and if what her sister said was true, it seemed that the whole school knew of her's and Lucius' classroom flirtation.

Besides, her dragging Lucius behind her was for entirely innocent reasons, but she had a feeling that he'd be able to appreciate it, nonetheless.

Approximately halfway through their trek, Narcissa estimated, Lucius finally stopped asking where they were going- but when she led him through the edge of the Forbidden Forest and stopped on a hidden, mossy bank by Black Lake, he started up again.

"Miss Black, are you quite alright? It's freezing out here," he fretted to her, their fingers still interlaced.

She dismissively rolled her crystalline eyes and gave him a smirk as she lowered herself to sit on the ground, pulling his hand with her on the way down.

The night sky was just as she had anticipated: clear, bright, and nearly overflowing with stars that had been haphazardly scattered above them. The hidden bank proved to be the best place on the school grounds to go stargazing, because the glow of the castle was nestled behind the densely wooded Forbidden Forest, and Hogsmeade was miles away, meaning that the atmosphere was entirely free of being polluted by the lights of civilization.

Lucius' eyes widened when he saw Narcissa lower herself to the ground, breaking the contact of their hands to lean back on her palms.

"M- Miss Black, would you like my cloak? You'll stain your gown with the dirt and grass."

She felt the corner of her lips involuntarily twitch up at the sound of him stuttering. She couldn't recall a single time where she saw him lose composure, and he must have been just as aware as she was, because he tried hiding it by clearing his throat.

Narcissa watched him as he eyed her intently, possibly even questioning her sobriety, but she still extended her hand out to him again, coaxing him to sit next to her. "My favorite constellation is going to be perfectly clear tonight, and I didn't want to miss it," he still appeared to be unconvinced by her words. "I can always get a new dress, but the grass stains tell a story, and I'd rather have good memories than just another pretty dress hanging in my closet. I have plenty of those," she reassured him.

He gave a humorless chuckle as he sat down next to her, looking like he was actively trying to keep as much of his robes out of the earth below them as possible. "You weren't enjoying the dance?"

She returned his laugh with one of her own, cutting her eyes to the side to assess his reaction. "Seeing as you left as well, I'd say you weren't enjoying it either."

He stiffened at the spine and allowed his tone to become cold and guarded. "I'm the Prefect of Slytherin house. I was simply fulfilling my duties in making sure that my housemate didn't run off and get herself killed by a centaur," his head remained straight forward, and Narcissa found herself fighting against the smile threatening to break free.

Any other student, whether pure-blooded housemate or the exact opposite, saw Lucius as a cold and clinical figure, staunch in his ways and unbothered by any outside forces. And perhaps, Narcissa thought to herself, he is.

But maybe that's what she liked so much about him. She liked that he was so formal in nature, and that only she seemed to possess the ability to have it all come crumbling down.

"You should know that I'm a perfectly capable witch. I don't need a man to save me from any supposed threats of danger," she replied the moment her smirk subsided.

"That I agree with," he returned.

"Then why did you agree to come out here with me?" She asked in a coy voice. "You play by the Prefect rule book so much. You could still be inside chaperoning the ball."

He turned his head to look at her, his eyes glinting in the starlight. "I suppose you could say that I was convinced," he glanced down at her hand that she was leaning on, raising an eyebrow with intrigue. It was a small movement, but one that didn't go unnoticed by Narcissa. "So, constellations, you said?"

She laid flat against the ground and reached her hand out for the Prefect to join her as she looked up at the sky.

"My family has a little..." she searched for the right word. "Quirk, I suppose you could say."

"The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black has a quirk, you say?" He quipped, his tone laden with a playful sarcasm. She reached her hand over and playfully smacked his arm, eliciting a laugh from him.

"Everyone in our family bears the name of a celestial body. Most are constellations," she told him matter-of-factly. "My sister, Bellatrix, was named after the star in Orion's belt, and I was named after the star Narcissus, which has ties to the Greek figure of the same name."

"The mortal son of the Gods who drowned after falling in love with his own reflection in a pool of water?"

She scoffed, rolling her eyes as she could practically taste the arrogant assumption on his tongue.

"I never said our family wasn't the least bit conceited," she huffed back.

"And I didn't say I didn't find it quite charming," he replied plainly. "In fact, I can't say I disagree with the namesake. If I looked anything like you, I'd probably meet the same demise."

Her brows furrowed, and for the first time since laying down, she broke her gaze from the sky and peered over at the blond, who was still intently staring upwards just as she had been. "Lucius Malfoy, did you just-"

"So which one is your favorite?" He interrupted her in the same nonchalant tone as before.

She took a moment to admire the way his platinum hair was fanned out in the grass behind him, and how the shadows from the trees cast dark, mysterious whispers across the contours of his face.

She was quiet.

"You said that your favorite constellation is going to be visible tonight," he reminded her when he noticed the silence. "Which one is it?"

She finally broke her gaze from him and returned it back to the sky, looking up to the left, but not showing him which one it was. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Well, sure," he laughed, "seeing as you dragged me away from the dance under the premise of seeing your favorite star."

"Then by all means, please return to the dance if that's what you'd like to do," she waved her hand flippantly in the air with a humorous drawl to her voice. "I'll be right here when you realize you're bored of watching third years awkwardly snog each other."

He didn't move. He had no intention of moving. He was perfectly comfortable where he was, despite the threats of grass stains on his dress robes- but he did realize that, just maybe, she was right about preferring memories over pristine robes.

"It's funny how we pure bloods get such bad reputations for being old fuddy duddies, considering that our families all have little quirks like this," he finally spoke up with a low gravel.

Narcissa smiled. "Oh? And what's your family's little quirk?" She employed the same playful sarcasm that he had used before.

Noticing her shift in tone, he smiled back. He broke his concentration from the stars and turned his head to look at her. "Well, if you asked my father, he would tell you that it's alchemy or collecting dark artifacts- which is true- But my grandmother on my mother's side always had a penchant for tarot."

He watched her as she raised an eyebrow. He took a moment to admire the way her hair looked like honey and spun gold. He remembered a muggle fairytale about an imp turning straw into gold that he overheard a half-blood first year telling other students about. At the time, he thought it sounded absolutely ridiculous. But when he saw her, he understood.

"The cards muggles use when they want to pretend to possess magic?" She asked him, sounding a bit like she wondered if he was joking with her or not.

He gave her another laugh. "They weren't always muggle cards, Miss Black. Tarot can be quite useful when in the hands of a capable witch or wizard."

She turned on her stomach, now resting her chin on her hand as she intently waited for the story to accompany his statement. "Consider me intrigued."

"Oh, it is intriguing. Very much so. Tarot can be used to translate the past and present, as well as predict the future, but did you know that everyone has a spirit card?"

She didn't answer, assuming that the question was rhetorical, but she continued to watch the way his lips formed around the words.

"Each card in the Major Arcana can be used to... I guess you could say represent a personality."

Immediately fascinated, she couldn't help but cut in. "And what would your spirit card be, Lucius Malfoy?"

He paused, looking thoughtful for a moment before his expression twisted into one of immense entertainment. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Alright fine," she rolled her blue eyes before chuckling back at him. "I deserved that."

She took a breath. The air was still and the world was quiet as they looked at each other, one pair of eyes searching in the other as if they'd find the answer to all of life's mysteries within them.

"Then what about me? What would my card be?" She asked him after a moment of quiet.

Lucius looked thoughtful. He tore his eyes away from her, looking up into the sky again, searching for the answer that he already knew, before returning back to her. He took a quiet, cautious breath before he carefully settled on his answer as he turned on his side and leaned against his elbow. "The Empress."

She leaned closer to him as she watched his silver irises fall down to her lips, and almost involuntarily, she felt herself doing the same with him.

"Which, by the way," he continued with a low, gravely voice, "is ruled by Venus, which influences luxury, pleasure, and romance." He studied her with a teasing glint in his eyes. "But I'm sure you already knew that."

"Funny..." her voice was barely above a whisper as her face came closer to his, as if he had some sort of gravitational pull. It felt as though a family of Cornish Pixies were dancing in her chest.

"Funny?" He whispered back.

"How constellations and planets and tarot seem to be inextricably tied together," she replied, now close enough to feel his breath against her lips.

His hand reached forward to gently hold her chin, and for a brief, fleeting moment, he thought of himself as a man with a death wish for wanting to kiss his friend's girlfriend.

But who was he to deny a lady of what she so clearly wanted?

The moment her lips pressed to his, it was as if the planets had aligned and every star twinkled with a new, reignited glow. It was as if every moment in recorded history, muggle or magic, had led up to the exact second that they both threw caution to the wind as they touched for the first time.

His hand fell from her jaw and down to her upper arm, where he drew her closer to himself, until her chest was on top of his. She reveled in the sensation of his heart beating against hers, and she sank into his kiss, using her tongue to part his lips and her fingertips to tangle in his hair.

For a while, everything was quiet, and it almost felt like they were the only two people in the entire universe. The only sounds were beating hearts, breathless kisses, and traveling hands. And it was everything that they wanted. Everything that neither of them knew was missing until that very moment.

When she pulled away, darkened, storm grey eyes met her sparkling blue. Her forehead pressed to his, and his hand snaked beneath her arm and around to her back, pulling her impossibly closer to him.

Lucius opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by the sound of rapid footsteps and labored breathing. Narcissa pulled away and saw a haggard looking redhead, doubled over with his hands on his knees as he struggled to regain his breath.

"Malfoy!" He weakly yelled to call the attention of the Prefect. "Malf-"

"What could you possibly need right now, Weasley?" Lucius snapped back at the ginger Gryffindor.

A sly grin grew on Bilius' expression. "Someone-" another deep inhale.

Narcissa thought that she was about to watch him pass out, and she struggled with whether she'd call for help, or just leave him there. She was definitely leaning more toward the latter.

"Are there not other Prefects currently in the Great Hall, Weasley?" His tone was undeniably curt. After all, Bilius was a Gryffindor, and he was the least of Lucius' concern. Whatever issue had arised at the ball that would have involved a Weasley should have been handled by his respective Prefect or Head of House.

"Someone spiked the punch bowl," Billius finally managed to choke between gasps for air, and for the first time, both Slytherins were able to see his face clearly, and he was clearly plastered.

Lucius rose to his feet and approached the inebriated redhead. "Are you sure it wasn't you, Weasley?" He uttered the surname as if it was a curse.

It was no secret that Bilius had long harbored a crush on Narcissa, and for a second, she questioned if he intentionally came to interrupt them and see her, but she shook away the thought. How would he have known she was here? No one knew that they left as far as she knew, and if anyone had seen them leaving the Great Hall together, they probably would have assumed that the pair was just heading back to their common room.

Bilius didn't give an audible response to Lucius, but rather, a condescending smirk.

"I asked you a question, Mister Weasley," Lucius sneered.

Bilius allowed his smug look to fall, easing into a drunken hiccup and a broad grin. "I dunno-" hiccup "but isn't it your job as a-" hiccup "to figure it out?" His green eyes flashed over to Narcissa.

It was at that moment that she became certain someone sent him. But who?


	5. V

The following morning, Narcissa awoke to the sound of her sister rummaging through her black lacquered jewelry box on top of the wardrobe next to her bed.

She was exhausted, and it took her several minutes before her eyes adjusted to the morning sunlight and allowed her to stay focused. Her head was pounding as if she had a hangover, despite not having a drop to drink the previous night, and even though she felt awful physically, she couldn't stop buzzing from how she felt emotionally.

She had actually kissed Lucius Malfoy.

And it wasn't just a kiss, she thought to herself through her half-conscious haze, it was a full-on snog! And he snogged her back!

It was rare for Narcissa to allow herself to drop her noble and aristocratic composure, but this was a fairly exciting milestone for her as a young girl coming of age, so she thought that it was acceptable for certain allowances to be made- especially when she kept her giddiness to herself.

"Oh good, you're awake," Bella mumbled from her side, breaking her concentration away from the jewelry box long enough to acknowledge her sister. "You don't happen to have any jewelry that's been hexed, jinxed, or charmed to repel disgusting men, do you?"

Narcissa blinked a few times, wondering if she heard her sister correctly. "I take it your date didn't go as planned?" She managed to quip back to her sister through squinted eyes.

Bella dug up an old silver locket, a Black family heirloom. She pulled her head back as she pressed the notch on the side with her thumb, as if she was expecting it to hex her as it opened up, but it didn't. And she wasn't quite sure if she was relieved or disappointed by how anticlimactic it was.

"I don't think I've got anything cursed in there. I've left my cursed jewelry box at home," Cissy joked with her sister, but Bella's shoulders fell with disappointment. "Who did you say your date was?"

Bellatrix sneered at the question. "Rodolphus Lestrange," she mumbled, shutting the box with a click before returning to sit on the edge of her bed with her arms folded in defeat.

"Interesting choice," her sister thought aloud, doing her best to not upset Bella any further. "And you didn't have fun?"

The raven-haired beauty fell back on her bed with an undignified groan. "The tosser was practically dry humping my leg the whole night like some savage beast!" She held her hands to her head and massaged her temples while staring at the emerald canopy atop her four-poster.

Narcissa's eyes widened at the claim. "Like... actually? He was actually humping your leg like a dog in front of Godric and everyone?"

Bellatrix scoffed, and even though Narcissa couldn't see her face, she could tell that she was rolling her eyes simply based on the tone of her voice. "No, not actually. He just-" another groan. "He kept asking if I wanted him to get me a drink. And he kept asking questions about me. And then, he had the gall to ask me to dance with him!"

The blonde fought back a giggle once she realized the source of her sister's discomfort. "Sounds awful, truly," was all she was able to say between silently gasping for air between quiet chuckles. "Didn't you just say a few days ago how you wanted a man who could handle you? It seems to me that Rodolphus-"

"Morning, ladies!"

Their conversation was dropped dead in it's tracks as the door swung open, punctuated by the creak of it's hinges, alongside a bang as it smacked against the wall.

Juniper Parkinson came floating toward the center of the room, hands full with a single piece of mail and a large vase of purple flowers.

"Morning, June," Narcissa jovially greeted the unexpected guest. "To what do we owe the pleasure of seeing you so early on a Saturday?" And perhaps, just a pinch of sarcasm.

"Figured I'd come deliver the post. One for each of you." Juniper unceremoniously tossed the plain envelope from halfway across the room toward Bellatrix, and then turned toward Narcissa as she precariously grasped the vase like her very life depended on it.

Presented to Narcissa was a dazzling bouquet of lavender roses, bat orchids, and heliotropes. She felt her face turned pink as she accepted the crystal vase from her housemate, and set it on top of the table next to her bed. Without any hesitation, she reached for the small, black envelope that was nestled among the blooms.

She took a moment to stare at the card. She had a feeling about who it was from, but she still wanted to take the second to drink it all in.

"Well, go on then!" Her sister urged.

"Yes, yes! We want to see!" Juniper seemed equally impatient.

Narcissa playfully rolled her eyes before pulling up the flap on the midnight-colored envelope and lifting the small card from inside.

_To My Empress,_

_For whom Gods and mortals would move the Earth and stars_   
_to know her kiss._

When she looked up from the card, Juniper looked as though she was about to faint from elation. Narcissa heard her say something along the lines of "how romantic!" but she was hardly paying attention when she noticed Bella's smug grin.

"What?" Cissy implored with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, nothing," Bella returned, shaking her head as she attempted to look as innocent as possible. "Nott just doesn't seem like the type." She wore a knowing smirk.

"That's because..." Cissy thought carefully about her next words, seeing as she was in the company of someone other than her sister. "They're not from Thomas."

"Oh!" Juniper exclaimed as though she had been personally scandalized.

"Of course they're not," she rose to her feet and started rifling through her wardrobe, picking out her outfit for the day. "The only boy in this entire school that's old-fashioned enough to do that is Malfoy."

Juniper's eyes shot straight from Bellatrix to Narcissa, as if she was intently consuming the outlandish plot of a muggle soap opera that she heard a group of Huffepuffs talking about.

Narcissa didn't supply either of them with a response.

"And all of us pure bloods already know that neither of you are interested in one another," she continued her spiel as she pulled out a black turtleneck.

Bellatrix let a few seconds pass before slowly turning around to look at her sister again.

Cissy fought a grin when Bella's eyes met hers, both of them unsure of what to think in this situation.

"Are those from Lucius Malfoy?" Juniper dramatically gasped, breaking the silence.

Bella tossed the hanger down on her bed and crossed her arms smugly against her chest. "Now, that's what I meant when I said someone like Thomas Nott wasn't rich enough for you."

Juniper shot Bellatrix a perturbed look. "What a horribly crass thing to say! The Malfoy family means more than their money-"

"That's the gist though, isn't it?" Bella snipped back at their housemate, satisfied by the response that she elicited.

Narcissa placed a gentle hand on her friend's arm. "Settle down, June. My sister isn't worth your reaction. She just doesn't believe in love or romance."

"I sure don't," Bella announced proudly. "But if I had the chance to combine the Gringotts vaults of the Black and Malfoy families, somehow I'd manage to believe in love at first sight. The platinum-haired eye candy is just a bonus."

Narcissa's cheeks were beet red by this point in the conversation, and just as the two girls were about to start arguing about the ethics of her secret affair, she let her voice cut across the room and redirect her sister's attention back to her.

"What's your letter say, dear Bella?" She managed to convey a sweet tone despite her high volume.

Bellatrix glanced down at the white envelope and turned it over in her hands, revealing the Black family crest on the wax seal. Her eyebrows raised when she saw it was addressed to only her, because typically, they were addressed to all three of the sisters- at least, that was the case, until Andromeda left school and had been excommunicated from their family.

 _Bellatrix_ ,

_This was a discussion that we would have preferred to have as a family unit, but seeing as your sister has single-handedly decided to cast shame upon The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black with her vile choices, we decided that the sooner we handle this scandal, the better._

_To combat the rumors about where our family's blood loyalties lie, we have begun negotiating mutually beneficial arrangements for your hand in marriage. We have contacted many respectable pure blood families with eligible sons, and we will send another owl as soon as we come to an agreement._

_As a descendent of House Black, and as our eldest daughter, it is your pleasure and duty to shoulder the mistakes of your sister and restore glory to our name._

_We hope this letter finds you well. We shall send another correspondence the moment we reach a resolution._

_Best,_   
_Mother & Father_

* * *

When Monday morning came around, the excited, cheerful aftermath of the dance had long-since left the general student body. For most students, it was simply caused by the lull and mundanity of resuming their regular schedules, but for the two Black sisters, it was brought on by coming to terms with the series of events that culminated over the weekend.

Ever since opening her letter, Bellatrix seemed entirely unphazed. She merely chalked it up to the second-to-last paragraph in the letter: it was her pleasure and duty as a descendent of the House of Black. After all, she didn't believe in love, and as the eldest daughter of a powerful pure blood family, she had always assumed that her marriage would not be one formed of her own volition.

On the other hand, Narcissa was conflicted with emotions. To anyone on the outside looking in, they'd say that the sisters had extremely similar looks of cool serenity, unbothered by any external forces at play. But on the inside, she wasn't sure which way was up and which way was down. In the course of only a matter of hours, her entire world had shaken. Despite this, she found comfort in her sister and admired the way she gracefully accepted the tasks and responsibilities assigned to her by their parents. She found strength in that.

While Bellatrix was making her usual rounds of walking Narcissa to her first class of the morning, she quickly and quietly dismissed herself as soon as she saw Thomas Nott stomping toward Narcissa from the opposite direction.

For the last several weeks, Thomas noticed his girlfriend growing increasingly distant from him. While he knew that they never had the perfect relationship, he did find it rather peculiar that she started drifting off at the same time he noticed the same behavior from Malfoy.

Thomas Nott and Lucius Malfoy had been mates ever since their first year together at Hogwarts. His name was called directly after Lucius' for the sorting hat, and when they joined the emerald-adorned table together, they became fast friends. In their second year, he and Lucius tried out for the quidditch team together, and when they both made the team, it didn't come as a surprise to either of them.

However, as the years trudged on, Thomas became more interested in quidditch and maintaining his social life, while Lucius spent more time focusing on his studies and becoming more involved in his father's involvement in the Ministry of Magic.

It wasn't until their sixth year, when Lucius didn't try out for the quidditch team again, that they really started to fall out of close favor with each other. They still had plenty of pleasant conversations in passing, spoke highly of one another when others asked, and they even still considered themselves friends. But at the end of the day, they quietly accepted that they were taking two different paths in life, and they accepted it.

Narcissa could have hexed her sister for leaving her here by herself, but she also knew that this conversation with Thomas was bound to happen. They hadn't spoken since the dance.

He casually ran his hand through his espresso curls, greeting Narcissa with a bright, innocent smile before taking her hand and kissing her fingertips.

"Thomas," she returned his greeting with a noncommittal smile.

He met her expression with a look of concern. "What ever is the matter, my love? You're not acting like yourself lately." He rummaged through his robe pocket and pulled out a small, white box of muggle cigarettes, a nasty habit that he picked up from one of his quidditch mates.

Narcissa fought a scowl as she watched him bring it up to his lips and use his wand to light the end. "Seeing as you abandoned me at the Hallow's Eve Ball to go snog some half-blood slags with your mates," she knew that people were likely to eavesdrop on them. Plenty of people saw him leave the dance without her, and even more took notice of them not being seen together since. "I'd say I'm acting perfectly calm and collected."

His pale, chiseled features twisted with a look of concern. "Abandoned?" He asked with his eyebrow raised, completely skimming over the rest of what she said.

She scoffed, unable to believe his ability to glaze over the more important parts of her accusation. "Yes, abandoned," she decided to play along with his game. "You never came back!"

"How would you know I never came back since you didn't, either?"

Narcissa stared at him in silence as he took a long drag of the cigarette. She willed her eyes to not open as wide as dinner plates when she realized his implication.

"How's Bilius, by the way?" He finally broke the silence, looking smug as he finally exhaled and a cloud of thick, heady smoke surrounded her.

He waited for a response, a clever comeback, anything. She was one of the most clever witches he knew, and he was disappointed that she didn't argue back. He decided to press on.

"You'd be surprised how easy it is to convince a ginger drunkard to do stupid things." His eyebrow twitched with a grin. "Macnair and I were taking bets on whether or not Malfoy would knock him out cold."

When she failed to verbalize a reply, yet again, he blew another deliberate puff of smoke in her direction, seeing how much he could push her buttons before she lost her cool in front of their classmates.

"Would you stop doing that?" She urged him in a quiet, yet strained tone as she attempted to keep her volume down. Don't cause a scene, she told herself. He only wants a rise out of you.

He met her blue eyes with another self-satisfied grin as he started to inhale once more, but she reached forward and yanked the cigarette from his mouth, immediately throwing it on the ground in one swift wave of her arm. A passing student stepped on it, extinguishing the orange bud as they rushed through the corridor.

"Now now, Nari." He shook his head with a feigned disappointment. "Such unbecoming behavior from a well-bred, pure-blooded girl. Druella would have a fit if she saw how all of those years of etiquette classes were going to waste on you."

She felt the corners of her lips twitch up, battling with herself to not laugh at his stupid audacity. "You have no business referring to my mother that way. But please," she implored, "tell me more about pure blood social etiquette, you cheating slimeball."

Satisfied with how she was finally reacting to his coaxing, he wanted to see just how far he could take it. It was no secret that the Notts were several rungs below the Malfoys on the social ladder, and he hypothesized that if he managed to get her to embarass herself in front of their peers, he'd stand a chance at her hand against his now ex-friend.

Thomas made a tutting sound. "As a daughter of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black," he drew out his words, carefully enunciating each syllable. "I figured you would know all about the tradition of the man of the house taking a mistress-"

"You are absolutely vile, Thomas. You're not the man I agreed to court last Summer-"

He held up his left hand to silence her, and used his right hand to reach down in his robe pocket again. "Besides," he produced the white box once more. "Everyone knows that the only thing more important than pure blood etiquette, is pretending to follow pure blood etiquette." He lighted the cigarette and took another long drag. "So no hard feelings, my love. I forgive you."


	6. VI

It must have been apparent that Narcissa was having a bad day, because that very same morning, Lucius passed her a note in potions class asking what was wrong. Of course, he phrased it in his own cheeky, roundabout way, but Narcissa didn't feel like she could properly convey the series of tumultuous events on a piece of scrap parchment.

Nonetheless, Lucius remained persistent in his valiant effort to find out what was bothering her. After several more notes were covertly penned back and forth, Narcissa reluctantly agreed to tell him everything if he met her in the clearing just past the covered bridge after classes ended that day.

It didn't take her very long, standing in the cold, to realize how much of a bad idea it was. It was a particularly breezy day, but after the sun had set, it became more cold and biting. If it hadn't been for her emerald scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face, her nose and cheeks would undoubtedly be bright pink.

Sure, this location was the most realistic option as far as secret meeting places went on the school grounds, but she was starting to regret it. According to the large clock above the courtyard in the distance, he had two minutes before he was late, and she saw no signs of him anywhere.

She turned to face away from the school grounds, watching the glow from Hogsmeade Village off in the distance; she thought that she might have felt one small, singular snowflake land on her nose. It would be the first snowfall of the season.

At first, she felt like a fool for agreeing to meet up with the man that had caused a rift between her boyfriend and herself, especially considering that they participated in a rather unraveling kiss. But no! Narcissa told herself. She wasn't going to allow herself to think that, because she never would have brought him stargazing if her actual boyfriend hadn't left her.

So really, it was all Thomas' fault.

She smugly crossed her arms against her chest, fully satisfied with the conclusion that she came up with. Yes, she would do just as her sister Bella had always done: blame all your problems on men! Even if they weren't at fault for the issue at hand, they would most likely be guilty of something else which had caused a domino effect- meaning they were responsible for anything and everything that turned to shite in a young lady's life.

She chuckled to herself, thinking how proud Bella would be to see her little sister utilizing her strategy.

"Something funny, Miss Black?"

She felt her eyes widen at the sound of the seemingly disembodied voice. As smooth as velvet, almost a purr. Just as quickly as her shoulders tensed from the surprise, she relaxed again, turning on her heel to face him and looking unphazed.

When she trained her eyes on his, he raised a thick, blond brow in interest. "You looked quite distressed in potions class earlier. Now you're looking a bit like the cat who got the cream," a hint of a smirk played at the corner of his mouth.

Honestly, this was the most conflicted that she had ever been. Her boyfriend had proved himself to be infinitely more immature than she ever would have imagined, even in her wildest dreams. And yet- she felt a dutiful obligation to put on a brave face. Part of her wanted to hurt him just as badly as he had hurt her.

Another part of her mourned for her sister and her loss of autonomy. Although Bellatrix's obligation to her recently arranged marriage was not fundamentally indifferent to Narcissa wanting to wait out the trials of her own relationship, she was still saddened by the fact that her sister would never have the opportunity to fall in love organically. Whether she believed in it or not.

And finally, but most notably, she found herself worryingly distracted by the devilishly handsome boy before her. She was enthralled by his immaculate and minimalist color pallete of mercurial eyes, unblemished alabaster skin, and platinum hair that was nearly as white as the purity of the dainty snowfall.

She was enveloped by the way that the snowflakes would melt against his cheeks before they ever had a chance to touch the ground, and it only served as a reminder of the way his warm skin felt against hers not many nights ago.

The feeling unsettled her deeply. Narcissa had grown accustomed to being the one people chased after. Coveted. Admired from a distance. She was comfortable with being the unattainable object of every man's longing. The very definition of perfection.

But she had never known what it was like to chase the feeling that he gave her that night. To covet someone. To admire from a distance the way his hair blew in the icy wind or how the contours of his lips made her tingle in her core.

However, unlike any man she'd ever met before, he didn't chase her. He didn't wait for her in the halls. He didn't write her pages upon pages of terrible poetry that was fraught with structural errors. He didn't sit in the back of the classroom and breathlessly admire the back of her head. He did none of the things that any other man who had pined over her did.

To put it simply, they were equals.

He was the perfect gentleman, and even though the bulk of their conversations had been rife with flirtation and intellectual innuendo, she was the one to initiate what had happened between them. She kissed him, and then the next morning, he gave her flowers. Nothing more. That was that.

"It's just been a bit of a strange weekend," she finally admitted quietly. "Just when I thought things couldn't get anymore strange, this morning only made things worse."

The smirk he was holding back finally freed itself. "Care to elaborate?"

Beneath her scarf, she was nibbling on her lower lip for reasons she couldn't place. Instinctive almost. "Where should I start?" She asked him with an empty laugh.

"The beginning is always reliable," he quipped. "But wherever you feel most comfortable works for me."

He stood confidently before her, shoulders squared back and chin high. It was the standard pure blood stance that was taught in any introductory etiquette class, but for many people it looked stuffy. On him, it looked natural. His structure, his features, they all certainly played a significant role- he looked as though he was the subject of a masterpiece sculptor like Michaelangelo.

"Well," she began to return to him, quietly taking a deep breath to recite her journey of a weekend. "Thomas and I got into an argument this morning. He was the one who sent Bilius after us."

For a fraction of a second, she could have sworn she saw his eyes widen.

"I reacted the same way," she admitted with a humorless chuckle. "Apparently, he saw us together at one point or another, and rather than confronting the issue directly-" probably because he was cheating, too! her inner voice screamed. "-he decided to send Bilius as a spy."

Lucius' eyes narrowed in an attempt to grasp the strange reality she was laying before him. "A Gryffindor who also happens to be a Weasley seems a bit of an odd choice for the matter," he thought aloud.

And truly, it was an odd choice. Thomas and Bilius had never been friends by any means, but this past Summer, shortly after Thomas began courting her, he overheard a crude comment that Bilius had made about her, inspiring Thomas to beat him into a pulp.

"Because Bilius has had a crush on me for years. Thomas probably figured I'd buy the 'creepy stalker' theory."

Lucius appeared to be veritably flummoxed. For the breadth of a heartbeat, Narcissa felt silly for the way she framed the situation- it did seem verifiably bonkers that she would make this man that she'd only kissed a single time follow her out to the outermost edge of the school grounds to grovel about a squabble in her relationship.

Just as she was about to further explain to save them both a significant amount of embarrassment, his features warmed again. He stepped closer to her, not touching her or even standing close enough to be considered romantically intimate. It was a simple, kind gesture of understanding.

That was... until he reached forward and pushed her scarf down, revealing her pink lips and snow-kissed cheeks. He brushed his thumb against her cheekbone, and at the contact, their breathing hitched simultaneously.

He wasn't going to apologize. He never had the intention or the inclination. In fact, it was his unwavering belief that no man in his right mind would ever apologize for kissing a woman as beautiful as she was, especially when she was the one to initiate it. 'Friendship' be damned.

He pushed away a stray tendril of blonde that had fallen loose from the silk ribbon in her hair. "What else is troubling you?" He asked her quietly

She swallowed. Not out of nervousness or insecurity, but because of just how inordinately heavy the next topic would be. However, she didn't feel the need to hold back or sugar coat reality, because he, too, was a pure blood of significant legacy. If anything, he was the perfect candidate for her to engage in commiseration.

Momentarily lost in her thoughts, she was brought back to the present by the feeling of his hand falling from her face. His fingertips ghosted down her jaw and past the sensitive skin below her ear, to briefly pause before slithering back to caress the nape of her neck underneath her scarf.

His resplendent gaze bore into her, a whisper of a smile at his lips as he held her.

She blinked once, freeing herself of the chains he had just tried to place her under. As flattered as she was, she was still distraught and wanted to command the attention that the topic deserved. She cleared her throat, and the intensity in his stare lessened- to which she fought a smirk, because for just a beat, she could have sworn that he may have been more taken by the tension than she was.

"I'm sure you've heard about our sister, Andromeda," she started. Of course he'd heard about it. Anyone that was even on the periphery of pure blood circles knew about the scandal, the tragedy of the Middle Black daughter.

He appeared as though he was battling with his two options: be polite and pretend to have no clue as to what she was talking about, or silently nod in agreement and spare her the lengthy explanation of something that you already know the answer to. Ever the gentleman, he chose the latter.

Narcissa took a silent, deep breath. She thanked her lucky stars that she didn't have to delve into the nuances of the situation out of politeness and pure blood politics. Simply discussing the emotional gravity of the topic was already onerous enough.

"Our parents have decided to take a more... proactive approach in our romantic lives," she said, fighting the urge to rub her cheek against his wrist, his hand still intimately planted at the height of her spine. "They sent an owl to Bellatrix this weekend, explaining that it was her duty to relieve our family of the shame that Andromeda brought us."

Brows knitted together, he gave a single nod, a movement so quick that if she had blinked at the same time, she would have missed it.

"They said that they were currently speaking with many eligible suitors for her," she felt his tender hold loosen from her, and his palm fell back to her shoulder. Neutral territory, much less close.

"They're arranging a marriage for her?" It was a question he already knew the answer to.

It was a term that felt particularly heavy on his tongue. Two Summers ago, Lucius' father, Abraxas, asked his only son if he was interested in such an arrangement. Being a Malfoy, they had more than enough money to burn when it came to the topic of choosing a future bride for the young heir, but the then fifteen year old boy was insistent and confident in his ability to use his looks and charms to find an equally stimulating mate.

"Yes." She finally nodded.

He pulled his hand away from her and quickly sheathed it into the pocket of his robes, garnering a quizzical look from Narcissa.

Just as she was going to ask what was wrong, she was halted by the expression that had sunk onto his face. It was one of firm impassivity. Instant awareness. Clarity.

Cold.

"I'm assuming this means that your hand will also be promised to another."

Nonplussed by his assumption, she barely had a chance to form a coherent thought before his next question came barreling down to follow up.

"Does Nott know of this arrangement?"

"I..." it felt like her head was spinning from the brisk turn the conversation had just taken. "I'm not sure."

"Not sure to which question?" His tone grew curt. "Or is it both?"

Despite his cross verbalization, he showed no evidence of anger in his expression. In fact, he showed no evidence of any emotion at all.

Much like Narcissa, Luicus Malfoy too felt an obligation to his pure blood heritage. He had no qualms with admitting that he was a dastard womanizer, and if the woman in question happened to have a monogamous love interest, well... It was just another inconsequential obstacle. Merlin, he sometimes even enjoyed the added challenge of an overprotective boyfriend, because that made his victory in the end that much sweeter.

But to interfere with an arranged marriage that had been meticulously orchestrated by the heads of two pure blood households? Lucius may be a bastard for his insatiable habits, but he certainly wasn't a masochist. To ruin a marriage that was created with the sole intent of preserving and continuing pure-blooded legacies would have brought immeasurable shame upon himself and his family name.

"Well, if I'm being honest," she swallowed again, feeling herself becoming disgruntled. "I truly don't give a damn about what Thomas knows and doesn't know. I didn't care after he left me at the Ball, and I certainly don't care now."

Without missing a beat, nearly disregarding her response about her boyfriend, he continued to lay into his first inquiry. "And the other question. Are you to become betrothed now, too?"

She felt her mouth gape with disbelief. These men and their bloody entitlements were going to be the death of her.

"Not that I'm currently aware of, Mister Malfoy, no." She allowed herself to convey just how cross she suddenly felt with him.

"Currently aware of?" He parroted back to her, now sounding just as confused as she felt when he initially imposed the question upon her.

After wrestling with the idea for so long, and after kissing her for the first time, he was finally able to admit to himself that he maybe had feelings for Narcissa...

"Yes, that is, in fact, precisely what I just said." She scoffed.

...But this wasn't a risk that he was willing to take.

"Well then, I'd like to formally apologize for abusing my inherent power as a Prefect at the Ball," he started, staring down at her hand.

"Excuse me?"

"It was irresponsible of me to indulge you in your persuasion to pull me from my duties," he fought to hide an arrogant smirk, and it was apparent that he was successfully rebuilding his conceited façade. "And it was even more wrong for me to engage in such an egregious lapse in judgment by allowing you to kiss me."

Her sapphire eyes widened to the size of dinner plates, totally and completely gobsmacked by what she was hearing. She knew that she was the single most desirable girl in the whole school. She was beautiful, intelligent, well-mannered, wealthy... She knew that it was a privilege for others to breathe in her general vicinity. She knew for a fact that he was not the one rejecting her.

No one had ever rejected her before!

A humorless chuckle escaped through her unwilling, disbelieving lips. He's jealous, she told herself. Of course! He's jealous. It was the only reasonable explanation. He was-

"I offer you my sincerest apology, Miss Black," but it wasn't sincere at all. It was arrogant and cold, and suddenly, she found his smirk enraging. "I hope that someday you'll be able to forgive me, and I wish you nothing but happiness in your future-"

Her palm flew forward, a resounding smack echoing in the expanse of the school grounds around them.

Social etiquette be damned.

"I am tired of you foolish boys acting like I have no autonomy over my life!" Her face, which was once pink from the cold air, was now flushed with a heady mix of anger and adrenaline. He stood still, shocked and silent as she stepped closer to him, jabbing her finger into his chest. "You are not my father. You don't know what's best for me, and you are not going to tell me what I should and shouldn't do!"

His bravado fell, and now, he looked almost terrified.

"You enjoyed kissing me, Lucius Malfoy" she reminded him, "so I am not going to allow you to pretend that I coerced you into anything. Do you understand?"

He blinked.

"And just in case I haven't made myself perfectly clear, what's currently going on within my family is my business, and my business alone. If I am talking to you about it, it's because I'm confiding in you as someone I felt I could trust. That does not mean that your input is needed, or frankly, wanted."

She took a deep breath, nearly reveling in his stupored expression.

"Am I clear?" She asked him, calmer now and steadily regaining her composure as she pushed a stray curl out of her face.

He nodded. "Crystal."

Without missing a beat, and her blood still simmering, she held her nose high as she sauntered past him. In her mind, she was leaving him devastated in her wake. She'd like to think that he was finally realizing what a prize she was, and how he was already planning to give her an apology of the grandest and most epic proportions.

But what she didn't know was that in the entire history of the Wizarding World, not a single Malfoy had ever uttered a sincere apology. If an apology had been issued, it was either dripping in toxicity and sarcasm, or it was the most back-handed an apology could possibly get.

What she also didn't know, was that if she had just taken a single second to turn around to look at him one last time before she marched off, she'd see him glued to the exact same spot she left him in, rubbing the pink handprint against his cheek and staring at her in awe.

* * *

When Narcissa finally returned to the comfortable familiarity of Hogwarts' dungeons, the Slytherin Common Room password passed through her lips, barely above a whisper, "sanguinis pura," and she was immediately relieved to see Bellatrix standing in the back of the room, chatting with a housemate.

Until she realized that she wasn't chatting with a housemate. They were arguing. And it wasn't just any housemate– it was Thomas.

"...and if you knew what was good for you, you would treat my sister better! I'd be shocked to find out you were in possession of more than two brain cells to–"

They simultaneously noticed her coming in, and Bella's lips parted into a wicked grin at the sight of her. She looked back at Thomas and cocked her head to the side, her eyebrow twitching up as she ran her tongue over her teeth in a way that said 'well, good luck! You're going to need it!'

And with a parting glance, Bella disappeared toward the stairs that led to the girls' dormitories, leaving Narcissa and Thomas completely alone.

"Nari–"

"No."

His shoulders deflated at the rejection, but ever full of tenacity, he immediately reinflated himself and marched toward her with a bold, manufactured confidence.

She wanted to shove past him, but he was practically built like a brick wall. Tall, broad shoulders, muscley arms, and a chiseled chest that strained against the thin fabric of his pyjama shirt that was at least one size too small for him. He was the very embodiment of physical charm and masculinity, and if it hadn't been for his shite attitude ever since they returned to school, she could have seen herself enjoying–

"This is for you," his confident smile fell and his shy blue eyes cast down at the space between them as he held his hand out toward her, offering her a single red rose in full bloom.

She rolled her eyes and pushed his hand down. "I'm not a fool, Thomas."

She attempted to slip past him and follow her sister's path to the dorms, but he sidestepped and blocked her way again.

"You're not," he swallowed as he absently fiddled with the rose stem between his fingers. "But I am."

"Yes, you absolutely are," she agreed, feeling the bitterness rise in her tone again. "And you're teetering into unabashed idiot territory if you think I'm going to fall for this flagrant, half-arsed attempt at martyrdom."

She started to step to his other side, and he effortlessly mirrored her once more.

"Please, just listen to me," he sounded as if he was desperate, begging. "I've been an absolute git ever since we came back to school–"

"Oh, great! We're on the same page, then!" She batted her eyelashes as she put on a thick, overly genial inflection. "By the way, darling, how's the mistress shopping going?"

She wanted him to hurt in the way he hurt her. She didn't enjoy inflicting pain on the people she cared about, no, she was fiercely loyal and would do anything for the people she loved. While it was clear to her that she and Thomas weren't soulmates by any stretch of the imagination, she still cared for him as a person, and it was devastating for her to want to impose emotional turmoil onto him.

"Nari, I understand that listening to me is the last thing you want right now, but–" he dropped the rose to the floor and reached for her wrists, pulling her hands forward and leading her palms to rest against his chest. "–I miss how things were this Summer. And it's all my fault. I let my mates get into my head and it ruined the good thing we had."

Denying the voice in her head that was telling her to look up at him, she trained her gaze on her hands, which was arguably worse than looking into his eyes. He still encircled her wrists, and focusing on her hands meant focusing on how his shirt rippled against his muscles, and oh, Salazar, Narcissa. What are you doing?

"You are a git," she agreed quietly, refusing to look up at him.

He loosened his grip on her left wrist and trailed his fingertips up the length of her arm, caressing her smooth, pale skin and tracing a circle around her shoulder. She foolishly gave herself permission to cut her eyes away from his chest and followed the movement of his hand, until his forefinger and thumb found their way to her chin and tilted her head back.

Now falling into the pool of his deep blue eyes, she hardly noticed him guiding her right arm to loop over his shoulder as he pulled her against him, their bodies now flush, the heat of his skin radiating against her through his pyjamas and her school uniform.

"I don't want to lose you," he whispered down to her, lips faintly trembling with the admission. "You're everything I've ever asked for in a girl, and I don't want to make the mistake of losing you. I want to be better for you."

He craned his neck down to press his forehead to hers, and she tried to keep her breathing even. Merlin, he's charming when he wants to be. She felt his breath ghosting against her lips, the intoxicating scent of cloves, sage, cardamom, and she actively fought every instinct in her body that wanted to propel her forward into his lips.

"No girl in her right mind would give you another chance after what you said to me today," she breathed in response, trying to push through her stubborn, lustful instincts. She was proud of herself for telling him what he needed to hear, but her body betrayed her by willingly staying in his hold, unbreaking from his stare.

The corner of his mouth tugged up into a smirk, but his eyes still looked remorseful. "I know that, my love. I don't deserve another chance. That's the last thing you should give me after the horrible things I've said and done."

Her palm slid up from his shoulder and toward the nape of his neck, and she allowed her fingers to tangle in his espresso waves. Goosebumps spread across his shoulders and neck from her touch, and the movement tousled his hair. The scent of his shampoo ensnared her, demanding an exhale from both of them.

"Everything you've said about me is true. I'm a fool. I'm a git. And I–" he swallowed, looking as though he was genuinely struggling with his next thought. "And I deserved it when you ran off from the Ball with someone else."

"You did," she quietly agreed again, the fingers of her left hand spreading wide against his pectoral, recalling warm Summer nights and the way his muscles flexed when he was on top of her. She remembered marveling at the way his sun-kissed skin would glisten in the sunset after a long swim in the lake at Nott Manor.

"But I'm also foolish enough to ask you for another chance. To ask you to find it in your heart to gift me with your presence on a date to Hogsmeade this weekend–"

"Thomas," her eyelids fluttered involuntarily at the question as he drew her from her bawdy memories.

"Just one last time, Narcissa," his voice was almost pleading. "If I muck it up, then I won't bother you ever again. I promise. I just..." his right hand found hers again and he tenderly laced their fingers together. "I just need one last shot to do right by you."

She was quiet, her head swimming in everything that had happened over the course of the last three days. Not even half a week felt like an entire lifetime ago– like her reality had been entirely upended and everything she knew was wrong. She couldn't help how she felt around–

The tip of his tongue quickly traced his bottom lip, and she felt the heat pool in her stomach. She felt like she was liable to combust. Sweet Salazar, it was completely unfair how attractive this absolute tosser was.

"Please," he whispered again, his pleas spilling from his full lips as if they were sacred. His voice was rich and smooth, and it reminded her of simpler times. Warm nights, bare skin, and the bottom of a bottle of Fairy Wine.

She couldn't verbalize a response. Instead, she leaned forward onto the balls of her feet, and nodded a single time before pressing her lips against his, losing the battle with herself and yet not caring at all. His tongue commanded entrance between her lips, and his hands traveled down to the small of her back, pressing her hips to his as her grip tightened in his hair.

It tasted sweet like sin, and it felt heavy like a mistake moments before it's made.

The sound of someone clearing their throat came from the direction of the common room exit, and it was as if she was snapped out of a trance when she turned her head to see Lucius casually leaned up against a marble pillar.

Thomas' reaction trailed hers, and it was nearly identical in surprise.

"I'm sure you both know that it's well past curfew," the Prefect warned with a low, stern drawl. "Since this is only your first offense, I won't notify Slughorn." He pushed off of the pillar and paraded past them, a smug expression growing on him.

"But don't take my kindness for weakness," he warned over his shoulder when he reached the steps that led to the boys' dormitories. "I wouldn't make this a habit if I were you."

A pang of satisfaction shook her to her very core when she saw the look on his face. It was one she knew well, because she too had mastered it; stoic, cold, unaffected– but if you looked hard enough at the inner corner of his brows or the outer corner of his mouth, you could see just the smallest hint of something that never felt more delightful than it did now.

Jealousy.

After the way he spoke to her on the bridge, after the way he made her feel, a rich and delicious amusement bubbled up inside of her.

"So sorry, Prefect Malfoy," her left hand pressed against the back of Thomas' neck as she pulled herself closer to him, her right hand tracing down the length of his arm to settle on his hand that was gripping her hip. "We'll be off to bed, then."

Standing still in the threshold, Lucius struggled to maintain his indifference, and she felt a wicked grin pass across her lips. However, Thomas was none the wiser to what was happening before him; he simply allowed his witch to settle against his chest, and even permitted his thumb to brush against her hip bone through the fabric of her skirt.

Narcissa turned her head to face Thomas again, and she whispered, her volume precisely loud enough for the blond wizard to overhear. "Your room or mine this time?"

Unable to believe his stroke of luck, he didn't take the time to entertain the question with a verbal response– it was all the permission he needed. Without another word, he stepped backwards out of her embrace and grabbed her by the hand, towing her behind him as he led them in the direction of the stairs that led to the boys' dormitories.

With Lucius directly in their path, looking as though he was struggling to keep himself from absolutely combusting on the spot, Thomas brazenly side-stepped the Prefect with a cheeky smirk, and tossed a "Cheers mate," over his shoulder as they passed him.

It wasn't exactly where Narcissa had originally planned her night ending, but seeing the almost carnal jealousy in Malfoy's eyes was more than enough to make up for the mistake that she was about to make.


	7. VII

Narcissa awoke feeling like she was suffocating, lying on sheets that were much too hot, with a boy who was built like a Greek God sprawled out on top of her. She was sore between the legs, had a pounding headache, and felt wholly unsatisfied by the events of the previous night.

She stared straight ahead into the canopy of Thomas' four poster twin bed as she got her bearings. She assessed the current situation: her boyfriend-turned-ex-turned-boyfriend-again was lying on top of her, bare chested and snoring loud enough to wake the dead. The curtains around the bed were closed, and she assumed, or rather _hoped,_ that he had possessed the sense to cast silencing and disillusionment charms.

This certainly wasn't new territory for her. In fact, she would have found it oddly charming and reminiscent of the early days of their relationship together if he hadn't outed himself as a total hippogriff's arse.

But this time was different. Not only had he emotionally seduced her back into a relationship with him, but in a strange turn of events, she ended the night on the receiving end of the same terrible, unsatisfying, one-sided sex that she'd grown to become accustomed to ever since they started dating. "Just lay back and think of England," the sisters' old governess used to tell them when she gave them the ' _Goblins and Grindylows_ ' talk.

She wiggled an arm free and used her forefinger to crack open the curtains to see if she could take a guess as to what time it was. Thankfully, it was still dark, and the moon was situated high in the center of the sky. She allowed herself a silent sigh of relief as she pulled her hand back and let the curtains fall closed again, but the still-sleeping Thomas stirred against her, muttering something nonsensical and his breath ghosting across her skin.

Holding the hand that she'd just used to shift the curtain open above her head, she whispered _"accio wand,"_ and successfully captured the ebony wood by the silver filigree handle, and held still while Thomas turned his head against her chest.

Narcissa aimed the tip of her wand toward him, delicately waving her hand and casting a _Muffliato,_ still unsure as to whether or not it had been cast in the first place. Regardless, this casting was concentrated on him, in hopes of her being able to slip out from underneath him undetected.

Before she started shimmying herself free, she waved her wand again, this time towards herself. A _Quietus_ for good measure, making sure that none of his roommates heard her pattering across the floor when she made for the exit.

 _Simple mercies,_ she thought to herself as she wiggled out from underneath him, thanking whatever deity it was that decided to make Thomas too ravenous, or perhaps too lazy, to fully undress her last night. Before bed, she had changed into a black satin slip that brushed just above her knees. It was part of the few changes of clothes she kept in his trunk for sleepovers, back when their relationship was slightly more amenable.

Finally unfettered, she all but ran toward the stairs and in the direction of the common room. Once she reached the shared space, she slowed her gait and began to tiptoe into the stairs that led to the girls' dormitories. Somehow, she had managed to go entirely unnoticed, and for that, she was grateful.

What she was _also_ grateful for was having a sister in the same house as her. Normally, smaller and more private rooms were reserved for Prefects and Head Boys and Head Girls, but back when Narcissa was sorted into Slytherin, the Headmaster was generous enough to allow the three Black sisters to have their own space. Now that Andromeda was gone, it was only Bella and Cissy in a shared room while the rest of the Slytherin girls, the likes Juniper Parkinson and Dolores Umbridge, shared a different one.

She breathed another sigh of relief when the door to her's and Bella's room creaked open and it was still completely dark. Still under the _Quietus_ charm, her footsteps were inaudible but she continued to tiptoe to her bed after she closed and locked the squeaky door behind her.

Halfway back to the comfort of her familiar evergreen sheets, a bright light assaulted her photosensitive eyes that yearned for sleep.

She nearly jumped out of her skin at the unexpected illumination, but her worries were almost immediately put to rest when she saw her onyx-eyed sister lying in her bed, holding her wand and peering at her from the top of a glossy pink magazine.

 _'Lumos minima,'_ she grumbled, and the light from the tip of her wand dimmed to a less agressive glow.

"What are you still doing awake, Bella? What time is it?" She asked her sister with squinted eyes and a groggy voice.

"Let's see, _Pisces, Pisces, Pisces_..." Bella ignored her sister's questions as she thumbed through the magazine in her hands. "According to Witch Weekly, your weakness in the bedroom based on your astrological sign is..." she held the magazine up closer to her face, pretending to study the results as if they were sacred texts. "Cheating douchebag quidditch players with more abs than brain cells!"

Bellatrix had always been a hard read, and this was no exception. Narcissa wasn't sure which demeanor she detected the most from her sister in this moment. Disappointment? Amusement? _Pride?_

The correct answer most likely laid in a small space where the three overlapped. They certainly weren't mutually exclusive, and experiencing such a broad, varied range of emotions was not out of her older sister's repertoire.

A beat of silence between the two was broken by the curly-haired beauty as she shut the magazine on her lap and cast it to the table beside her. "I couldn't sleep, and it's just after two in the morning."

Still unclear with her sister's current stance, Cissy decided that the best course of action to navigate the awkward encounter would be with humor.

"Mmm, they _are_ nice abs, though."

Bella stared at her little sister, silent and unblinking for what was most likely over half a minute before the straight line of her lips cracked and she burst into a snickering mess. With a tidal wave of relief washing over her, Cissy let herself laugh with Bella, relieved that she wasn't cross with her.

"What's got you unable to sleep?" The blonde asked the raven.

Bellatrix tapped her chin, pretending to be deep in thought before she shot the question right back. "I think the witch doing the walk of shame should answer first."

Narcissa rolled her eyes, hoping to cover her shame with a feigned annoyance. "It's a long story–"

"Good thing classes don't start for another..." Bella pantomimed looking down at a non-existent watch on her wrist. "...six hours."

Narcissa sighed with the displeasing realization that she had been back into a metaphorical corner. "It's been an extremely _trying_ weekend, as I'm sure you can commiserate, and Luc–"

Bella's eyebrow twitched with smug intrigue.

"– _Malfoy_ ," she corrected herself before she resumed. "Malfoy could tell something was wrong with me. So I told him everything, including the prospects of your arranged marriage." She cast her eyes down to the floorboard as a strange silence fell between them.

After a moment, she turned on the balls of her feet to face her bed, peeling back the covers before crawling in and wishing for nothing more than the sweet, temporary solace of sleep to come capture her.

 _"Nox,"_ the room fell dark. "I fail to see how your slag of a boyfriend and my impending nuptials made you spar with Malfoy and end up back in Nott's bed," Bellatrix challenged from across the room, and Narcissa could see her sister's arms crossed at her chest.

For what felt like hours, Narcissa went into great detail about what happened between she and Lucius past the covered bridge earlier that evening. When she got to the bit about slapping him, Bella wickedly giggled.

When Narcissa glanced over at the clock in the corner of the room, she was relieved to see that it had only been ten minutes.

"Well, I have no sisterly advice to offer you other than to enjoy it while you can," Bellatrix started off sounding jovial enough, but as her _'advice'_ drawled on, her tone noticeably grew more bitter.

After a few moments of silence had allowed them to digest Narcissa's half of the conversation, she finally interrupted to continue on, much to her older sister's chagrin.

"What about you, then? What's got _you_ up in the middle of the night?"

Bellatrix's dark eyes fell down to her hands in her lap, and as the seconds passed, she appeared as if it took more effort to maintain the smug grin on her face. She absently picked at a hangnail that had been bothering her all day.

"I got another owl from Mother and Father," she finally spoke up just as Narcissa was about to repeat her question, genuinely starting to wonder if she'd been loud enough.

 _Oh. That_ _can't_ _be_ _good._

"They came to an agreement for me." She confidently declared as she collapsed back into her pillows and ran her fingers through her wild mane.

"And?" Cissy coaxed.

"I'll be married and moved into my new home the week after the term ends." Her voice was casual, eerily so. Even though Bella maintained a flippancy around topics like love and marriage, Narcissa had a hard time imagining that such a monumental event wasn't affecting her emotionally.

Another jarring silence trailed as she waited for her sister to answer her question before she even asked it– not only was it an obvious question, but it was practically _the_ question.

"Who?" She derailed her own train of thought as her curiosity was beginning to borderline on morbid.

Bellatrix chuckled darkly. "Rodolphus Lestrange."

"Oh," Narcissa almost gasped from the pleasant surprise. She blinked a few times as she settled her thoughts. "Well that's good, isn't it?"

Silence.

"I mean, I know you didn't care for him as a date to the All Hallow's Eve Ball, but from what you said, it seemed like he was really attentive to you," she attempted to kindly remind her sister.

She heard her sister's sheets gently ruffle, quite possibly from Bella shrugging her shoulders. "Doesn't matter anyhow," she continued just as casually as before. "Attentive or not. Attraction or not. It wouldn't make a difference, because our family's reputation is more important to me than some unrealistic fairytale."

Narcissa's brows furrowed. She was saddened by her sister's bravado, but she still held hope that even if she didn't particularly _like_ Rodolphus, that perhaps one day she could grow to tolerate him. Besides, when it came to anyone except for Narcissa and her parents, Bella's _tolerance_ was as close to love as she could ever get.

"Do you know if he'll allow you to continue your studies? Or have a job?" Cissy pressed on, trying to see if she could get a better gauge of her feelings with the situation.

Twenty years ago, it would have been absolutely unheard of for the Lady of a pure blood household to do anything but simply _be_ Lady of the House– but times were changing.

British pure blood society nearly upended as a whole almost ten years ago when their cousin took a bride from Greece who insisted on continuing her studies in Transfiguration Mastery. After she completed it, she expressed no further interest in actually applying her knowledge to anything, and she went on to happily maintain their estate with absolutely no complaints.

Ever since then, faint whispers could be heard in passing at Ministry events and Dark Arts galas that hinted at looking at such a practice more favorably as long as it didn't distract the Lady of the House from her true purpose– and even though it excited girls their age to potentially do something meaningful with their education, Narcissa always felt she'd be _more_ than fulfilled by the traditional roles of wife and mother when the time came.

Rather than answering Narcissa's question, Bellatrix bowled over it entirely, with a whiplash-inducing change of subject.

"Do you remember that strange man who visited the school for a meeting with Dumbledore in your first year? The one that was asking about taking the job as the Dark Arts professor?"

Narcissa could already see the gears turning in her sister's head.

"Vaguely," she replied, curious as to where she was taking this subject. "The tall one with the dark hair?"

Although she couldn't see her sister in the dark, she could hear more shuffling of her sister's sheets, possibly meaning that she was nodding– and rather intently, at that.

"I've heard that he's going to be campaigning at the Ministry soon," Bellatrix's sudden tone of excitement filled the air, and based on her voice alone, it was obvious that she was beaming.

"Oh? Campaigning?" Cissy goaded her with a noncommittal response, hoping she'd continue.

"Campaigning for the importance of blood purity, of course!" She could hardly conceal her elation, her voice nearly sounding like a song. "The word is that he needs supporters for his cause– to show the Ministry how serious we are about preserving the sanctity of our bloodlines."

She felt her brows move up so high that they nearly disappeared into her hairline. "And you're going?"

"Of course I'm going," Bella replied as if the answer was obvious. "The more supporters he has, better the chances of the Ministry heeding his message. I figure I'll be the most influential person there, considering our family name."

Narcissa struggled with the thought. While the message was an important one, she couldn't help but wonder how this would affect her relationship with Rodolphus before it even had a chance to blossom. Certainly a man wouldn't be terribly keen on his betrothed following a man she didn't know into the Ministry to show support?

She shook away the thoughts. It was getting late, and she was almost entirely positive that her sister's visions of grandeur were solely fueled by her exhaustion.

Before turning over in her bed, she instilled every confidence she had in her sister, promising her unconditional support of such a worthy and noble cause. She rarely saw Bella get _that_ excited over, well, _anything_ , and she wanted to show her enthusiasm as much as she could.

After exchanging a few mutual visions for the bright future ahead of them, they quietly said their 'good nights' and fell back into the friendly, comforting lull of sleep.

* * *

After a week full of classes that hadn't been particularly challenging, Narcissa was desperate for the solace of the weekend to save her from the mind-numbing mundanity. Besides, the weekend away from classes meant that she would be saved from the awkward daily encounters of sitting next to an uncomfortably silent Lucius Malfoy in Advanced Potions.

Plus, this weekend was going to be her date with Thomas. A proper date, as he had promised her. Two weeks ago, she would have been hesitant– in fact, she probably wouldn't have agreed to it in the first place– but she was pleased to say that it seemed like he had actually been _trying_ to make things right.

At first, part of her wanted to use Thomas as a means to make Lucius jealous, but as the days passed, he'd employ a random first-year to venture to her classes to give her single red roses and small poems about her eyes that would make any normal almost-seventeen year old girl melt. Sure, he had all the charm and charisma in the world, and he was flirtatious to a fault, but she never thought that he was the type to make small but significant romantic gestures like that.

Part of her even grew suspicious that he was making such huge strides in his social and romantic etiquette. For a brief moment, she hypothesized that someone had used Polyjuice potion and was playing a trick on her. But ultimately, she questioned if someone was simply telling him all the right things to say and do in order to win her back– up to and including pulling the chair out for her at Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop for their date.

She had no qualms admitting that he had certainly risen to the occasion. His dark waves were neatly arranged into an attractive style, he wore navy trousers and a matching jacket with a crisp, white shirt underneath that had the top two buttons tastefully undone.

He'd even had the foresight to let her know ahead of time what he planned on wearing so that she could plan to match. Her dress was simple enough, long-sleeved and fitted to the knee, with a square neckline that allowed her to wear a string of pearls that had belonged to her grandmother at one time. During their walk to the village, she had a grey wool coat that she wore overtop, but as soon as they entered the tea shop he had pulled it off her shoulders and gave it to the attendant at the front.

His movements were light and graceful as he unfolded her napkin and laid it across her lap, followed by pushing her velvety pink chair back into the table for her. He was every bit of the gentleman that she'd always pictured herself with. To say that she was surprised would have been an understatement.

The only offense that she normally would have protested to was that he had insisted on ordering _for_ her. It's not that she was picky, she was just very particular in the way she liked things. His saving grace ended up being the fact that he'd ordered _literally_ one of everything.

Now, Madam Puddifoot's never had a copious selection of pastries and small, savory treats on any given day– the menu was ever revolving, and it tested new flavors regularly enough to keep things interesting.

It wasn't long before a stout, blonde witch in a pink apron brought out their first pot of tea and a tray of treats, and as soon as she set everything down and returned to the kitchens, Thomas let out a contented sigh.

"I wanted to go ahead and get this out of the way early so that we can hopefully move past it," he began in a low voice from across the table. His eyes distractedly followed her hands as she prepared her cuppa. "Thank you for giving me this chance. I know I've been a prat, and I don't deserve it–"

"Yes, Thomas, we've established that much already," she interjected with a coy smile, only briefly glancing up from the spoon she'd dipped into the sugar dish. She hadn't employed a snarky tone, as to not sour the wholly pleasant day, but she did choose her words carefully to let him know that his previous indiscretions would not be forgotten.

"Right," his confident façade briefly faltered as he cracked a defensive half-smile. "Well, I suppose that's the gist of it, then. Just... thank you."

She slowed the stirring in her teacup and raised an eyebrow, dubious of why he was so thankful. "You act as though I've discovered the cure for malediction. Why?" And perhaps her tone was slightly more blunt than she'd intended it to be.

"I know what I've got with you," he replied just as bluntly. "I'm aware that I took you for granted, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make it up to you."

In a swift move that she hadn't expected, he reached across the table and took her left hand in both of his. For a moment, her elegant composure had nearly been staggered by the sudden grasp, but she quickly recovered before her eyes darted around the room to make sure that no one had seen it.

"You're acting very strange–"

"I've got a surprise for you after this," he interrupted. His thumbs were absently brushing her wrist while his gaze bore into hers. "If you're not going to be busy," he tacked onto the end.

Narcissa carefully assessed the boy before her, analyzing the curve of his brows and the crease of his smirk, trying to find the answer for his behavior.

"I found a couple that lives not too far from here that keep a stable of Aethonans," he let go over her hand and casually retreated his own back into his lap. "I recall you mentioning that you wanted to see some up close this past Summer."

She took a sip of her tea, considering the gesture and weighing her options between seeing the Aethonans, or returning back to her dorm as soon as they'd finished their date.

"Bellatrix promised to help me with some Divination homework that I've been having a hard time with," her eyes flitted down to her pastry in front of her. "I think she'd be cross with me for shrugging off school work."

At first, he was quiet; after the length of three blinks, he was finally capable of producing a response. "I wasn't aware that you were struggling–"

"I'm not struggling," Narcissa quickly informed him. "Divination just happens to be her strongest subject, and I want the best grade possible."

"Right. Well, I understand the importance that your family is to you, so I'll just send the Aethonan keepers an owl to reschedule." He broke his stare away from her and redirected it to his raspberry scone that he hadn't touched. "How is she, by the way? Bellatrix."

"She's fine," Narcissa replied quietly, noticing the witch from before coming back around to collect their first round of plates and replacing them with new ones. "I'll let her know you asked about her. I'm sure she'll appreciate it." She added once the witch stepped away again.

He chuckled. "I'm not sure _appreciation_ is the right way to describe it, but sure."

"What do you mean?"

"Come on now, Nari," he retorted with a condescending smirk. "We _both_ know how your sister feels about me."

And it wasn't exactly a secret. The week before the new term began, Narcissa and Thomas had gotten into their first disagreement as a couple. It was small and insignificant, and if someone asked either of them to recall _what_ it was about, they'd be hard pressed to give a definite answer. Immediately after aforementioned disagreement, Narcissa ran to her sisters and confided in them. Blew off steam. It was only natural for sisters to do, but afterward, Bellatrix was never exactly shy in peacocking her distaste for him.

Whenever Narcissa and Thomas made up, Bellatrix wasn't necessarily _thrilled_ about it. She thought that her little sister was much too young to already be involved in a serious on-again-off-again relationship with a boy who was going to graduate school soon. But, like any good sister would, Bellatrix supported her decision and only wished the best for her. She certainly didn't regard Nott as a good person, but she conceded that _most_ pure blood men of significant status weren't good people anyway.

All three girls knew the harsh reality that awaited them when they became old enough to marry. The best that they could do was support one another.

"How is she handling everything?" Thomas interrupted Narcissa's train of thought, leaning back into his chair with his arms crossed against his chest.

She blinked a few times as she caught back up with the conversation. "Handling everything?" She echoed.

He nodded.

There was a lengthy pause as they waited, _dared,_ for each other to elaborate on they meant– long enought for the witch in pink to come back and ask if they wanted another serving of anything. "Just the check, please," was all Thomas said as he refused to make eye contact with her.

He leaned forward, his elbows on the table and his hands clasped in front of him. His eyes narrowed, and for the first time, Narcissa found them to be slightly intimidating.

"Handling _what,_ Thomas?" Her voice was low, nearly a snarl. It was a question that she feared she already knew the answer to, but a small part of her wanted to doubt it. A much larger part, however, wanted to know how he found out in the first place. No one in the school knew the Black sisters intimately, and Juniper, who had been in the room when Bellatrix received the first letter, also came from a family with Sacred Twenty-Eight heritage– meaning that she knew to keep quiet about these things.

He leaned in to rest his chin on his hands, and the speed at which his expression shifted from one of intimidation to one of total innocence was mind boggling. His attention flicked downwards, his eyes now trained on the tea stained lace tablecloth as he inhaled deeply.

"Her marriage, of course," Thomas looked back up at Narcissa and assessed every emotion that passed behind her eyes that were the color of the Adriatic Sea. "She's getting married at the end of term, is she not?"

Narcissa hesitated, her breathing hitched and her mind was racing. "How do you know about that?" She asked quietly. She attempted to lean into the table to mirror him in order to keep her volume as low as possible, but every limb felt like it was made of lead.

He leaned back in his chair. His arms were crossed so tightly that his fingers were making indentations in his biceps. "Cygnus told me," he shrugged his shoulders, his tone was casual, and expression unreadable.

"My father told you?" The sense of disbelief rattled her to her very core.

Narcisssa's father and Thomas' father certainly knew _of_ each other, and there were no doubts that they held an amicable acquaintance with one another. But the extent of their relationship started and stopped with their children dating– and neither parent _ever_ spoke with the other's child, so why was Cygnus Black speaking to Thomas without Narcissa's knowledge?

His mouth quirked up at the corner, and he absently reached for a silver necklace beneath the collar of his shirt, playing with the pendant that took the shape of the Nott Family crest. "Well, he mentioned it in passing," he clarified.

Her spine stiffened as she sat ramrod straight in her seat. An unsettling chill tickled at the height of her spine, and it was at this point that she really began to struggle with holding her poise. "In passing of what, exactly?" She quietly swallowed back the dread that was building in her throat.

"Well," he cleared his throat– not because he needed to, but because it was something to ease the tension of what he was about to say. "You know your family's reputation means everything to your father." His thumb repeatedly grazed the back of the pendant, and he stared past her shoulder, refusing to make eye contact. "And because of the... _situation_ with your _other_ sister, he hoped for Bellatrix and yourself to right her wrongs."

Narcissa's hearing tunneled, and it felt like her heart was going to beat through her chest. His voice was a faint mumble past the loud sound of blood rushing through her ears.

Thomas finally glanced up at her again, and his brows almost immediately knitted together when he looked at her; she must have appeared every bit of the way she felt. "I'm guessing your father hasn't mentioned speaking with me?" He sounded genuinely remorseful, and it was such a strange emotion for Narcissa to stomach. "I'm sorry–"

"Why would he tell you about that?" Another obvious question. Another answer that she already knew and didn't want to face.

"Um..." he stumbled to find the appropriate words. "He knew that you and I have been in a courtship, and he asked my father and myself if I was interested in..." he looked back down at the table. "Making an offer... for you."

The ringing in her ears came to a screeching halt. Suddenly, she was hyper aware of everything going on around her– the annoying way he was fiddling with his necklace, how her blood felt rushing past the pulse point in her throat, and the rhythm in which the witch that was sitting three tables down just _wouldn't_ _stop clinking her bloody spoon against her bloody teacup._

She had questions. A lot of them.

"And did you?" Was all she was able to manage.

He leaned forward again in an attempt to capture her hands the same way he did when they first sat down, but she pulled away before his fingertips had the opportunity to brush against her– a movement that was almost instinctual.

"I did," he nodded.

"You _made_ _an offer_ on me?"

He hesitated for a fraction of a second, but nodded again, slower this time.

"And neither you or my father thought to give me..." she bit back an incredulous laugh. "A warning–"

"Why are you acting like that?" He automatically switched to the defensive when he saw her growing cross. "We're both pure bloods, Narcissa. Don't act like you don't know how this is all going to go."

She scoffed. Her eyes were as wide as dinner plates and a chuckle involuntarily forced it's way through her lips. "So you _made an offer_ on me?" She repeated herself. "As if I'm... livestock? Chattel? A–"

"Don't do this, Nari," he let out a petulant sigh as he rolled his eyes, thoroughly put off by the way she was reacting to the news. "You know it's not like that. This is just customary, and you know that."

"I _wanted_ to at least _know_ it was happening, Thomas!"

"And now you do!"

Narcissa laughed again, and before her shoulders could slump in defeat, she rose from her chair and turned on the balls of her feet toward the exit. Using a fast, confident march to hide how small and defeated she felt in that moment, she didn't even bother to stop at the attendant for her coat. She simply pushed past the exit, and started down the road that connected Hogwarts and Hogsmeade Village.

In the middle of her despondent march, nearly fifty meters past the sign that welcomed visitors to the village, she heard rapid footfalls closing in behind her.

"Narcissa! Please wait!"

She continued on, unapologetic in her pursuit of a peaceful afternoon where she could pretend that this never happened.

"You forgot your coat," when the voice came nearer, she felt a hand grip her shoulder, forcing her to turn around. Fast on her feet, she drew her wand as she spun to face him.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't hex you to the point of maiming! _One!"_

Thomas faltered at the unexpected brandishing of her wand, and he stepped back defensively. A root that was sticking up between the cobblestones caught under his heel when he attempted to distance himself from her, and he stumbled backwards. By the time he tripped and landed flat on his arse, he'd barely even had time to process what was happening.

Narcissa shot him a look that he'd never seen her wear before– something between a sneer and utter disgust, with just a dash of schadenfreude for good measure.

With a snarl, he threw her coat off the path, landing in a pile directly in the center of dirt and sludge. Whenever he managed to return to his feet, he drew his wand just long enough to cast a _Scourgify_ on himself before he returned it to his pocket. As soon as he did, he stepped toward his witch and wagged a finger mere centimeters from her face.

"I've made mistakes, and I have owned them. I've begged for forgiveness and promised to return anew," he told her with a cold, careful exhale. "Now, I come from a respectable family, and I've done you a great favor by at least _attempting_ to romance you–"

"Taking me out for tea _one_ time isn't 'romance,' Thomas."

"Do you want to know what would happen if you were with anyone else, Narcissa?" He blinked rapidly, his finger still in close quarters, daring her to speak. "Hmm?" But she didn't. She just stared. "Any other pure blood wizard of status would have simply thrown down a bag of galleons on your fathers desk without a word. You probably wouldn't even know what he looked like until your wedding–"

"You're being absolutely–"

"Quit acting like a stupid fucking slag and get a bloody _grip!_ There are _far_ worse wizards out there that you could be a ball and chain to!" He mimicked her incredulous laughter so perfectly that it was almost eerie. "I've done you a _favor_ by trying to keep this..." he motioned to the space between them. "Whatever the hell _this_ is, going!"

She stepped back, trying to create more space between them, curses threatening to spill from her tongue as he continued his barrage of insults.

"I offered good money for your hand, and all I want is to see you happy! And you're never bloody happy! What the fuck does someone like– like that absolute tosser Malfoy have that I don't? I could give you _anything_ you wanted, Narcissa! Together, we could–"

She'd heard enough.

_"Petrificus totalus."_

And the ranting, raging boy that stood across from her was rendered completely silent and immobile by the full body bind curse.

She felt a deep satisfaction and pride ripple through her chest at the sight of his incapacitation. The insults that he was hurling at her weren't what made her crack, though.

"You–" she waved her wand again, "–are not–" the _Fernunculus_ jinx, "–entitled–" another flick, "–to me!" And the final cast of the _Flipendo_ jinx sent him flying backwards, unable to catch himself or even fight back once he landed.

One could argue that it had been a cheap shot, to paralyze someone _before_ casting a charm that sent them flying backwards. And sure, it could be argued that a jinx that covered his skin in boils was childish.

But he hadn't been honest with her, and he wasn't known for fighting fair, either.

So why should she?


	8. VIII

The following day, Narcissa made it a point to make herself scarce. She didn't want to face the shame or embarrassment for proving her sister right about Thomas, nor did she want to face Thomas _himself_ _;_ not to mention the inevitably awkward passing glances between Lucius and herself– she shivered. They were all problems for a different day.

 _That_ day, she chose to skip her classes, _Potions especially_ , and decided to spend her class periods in a secluded section of the library. Intelligent as she was, she didn't feel fear of falling behind in her classes, and at the moment, her desire for self-preservation was much too great.

Narcissa was a girl who rarely felt embarrassment, but her sense of obligation to honor her family's reputation drowned out every single alarm that was going off in her head telling her to run for the hills. She had no trouble admitting to herself that Bellatrix had been right all along, but it was easy to sign off her resignations toward him as a simple aversion to the male species in general. Bellatrix certainly had appreciation for the male form, but she'd never been in a relationship. But perhaps that was where she got all of her wisdom from– she saw the duplicitous, immature boys for what they were.

In fact, the idea may have had some merit to it... the only boy Narcissa ever heard her sister speak positively about was Lucius, but Salazar knows she'd already burned that bridge by trying to childishly make him jealous. She supposed that she'd see him in class again to ask forgiveness for her brainless mistake, but then again, she would still be caught in a tough position because _what if what Thomas said was true?_

What was she going to do if he hadn't _actually_ been lying, or embellishing the truth about her family's plans for her future marriage?

The idea itself came as no true shock to her, and in some ways, she really just anticipated it as a fact of _when_ and not _if._ But she was still left wondering why Thomas knew about it before she did. What she was refusing to face, however, was the fact that Bellatrix was kept in the dark about her arrangement, too. She was barely even warned about their family's plans for her before she received confirmation of who she'd been sold off to– much less have enough time to process it.

However, Narcissa wasn't worried for her sister's strength or resolve; she was resilient, and most times even _thrived_ in onerous situations. Narcissa was different, though... despite her subconsciously reluctant acceptance of her fate, she was a romantic at heart. She always figured that if she ended up in an arranged marriage that she would find a way to make the best of it; perhaps she'd even fall in love with her hand-picked partner someday. But she knew that she could never have that with Thomas. He would never be what she wanted, and she wasn't entirely sure she'd be able to fake _liking_ him at this point, much less fake _loving_ him.

She just hoped that if what he said about her father _'taking offers'_ was true, that someone else, _anyone_ _else,_ would swoop in at the last moment.

It was no secret in the Wizarding World that the Black sisters were the best of the best– born and bred specifically to be the wives to and mothers of the wealthiest and most powerful wizards that their world had ever, _would ever_ see.

But Bellatrix's words from a few weeks ago haunted her: _'we're too intimidating for most men_ ,' and it was true. Take Frank Longbottom for example– she wasn't even talking to him out of her own interest, and even _he_ knew that, but that didn't stop him from cowering in her presence. Even someone like that disgusting oaf Bilius Weasley– he might have had the gonads to occasionally kiss her on the cheek against her will, but that took a rather substantial amount of alcohol in his system, and even though he was certifiably inebriated, he knew better than to stick around to see what would happen to him when she inevitably hexed him for it.

So there she sat– bum practically glued to a wooden chair in a dark corner of the library, studying through all of her classes, free periods, and meals. It wasn't a bad thing, though. It afforded her the rare opportunity to check thrice over her assignments and essays for all her classes, and she'd even taken the initiative to write an extra ten inches of parchment for her Arithmancy project.

Just as she had dipped into a newly-empty ink pot, she thought to look up at the clock for the first time since noon, and she blinked in rapid disbelief when she saw that it was less than an hour until midnight; it left her wondering how she managed to avoid being shooed out by the librarian, and while she hadn't cast any sort of disillusionment charm that would have allowed her to accomplish such a feat, she definitely didn't feel the aftermath of any spells cast by other students, either.

She shrugged off the feeling, resigning the librarian's oversight to a simple mistake.

Feeling more than satisfied with her rather auspicious day of studying, Narcissa collected her books, deciding that it was finally time to face the music of her sister's judgment. Half of her hoped that Bellatrix would already be asleep by the time she reached the dorms, but the more logical half of her brain told her that her sister was a night owl, and that her wish wouldn't be the case.

On the way back to the dungeons, the halls were completely empty, and the only sound accompanying her journey were the echoing taps of her shoes against the flagstone. It was rare to see the corridors entirely uninhabited, and while she _should_ have put the pep in her step to get back to her dorm as quickly as possible, she thoroughly enjoyed the peaceful solitude.

As she turned the corner that now had the entryway to the Slytherin Common Room on full display, she heard a sharp giggle and excited whispers coming from the mouth of seventh year Blaire Zabini, who was currently being pressed against the wall right outside the common room entrance by her most recent dialliance– some sixth year Gryffindor who no one had bothered to learn the name of. Her lovers quickly came and went, _in more ways_ _than_ _one,_ as Blaire preferred to not keep them around for too long. She was fiercely independent in that way, with little concern for anyone but herself and her current needs; it wasn't that she was selfish, she simply just liked herself too much to bother with what anyone else thought.

Blaire was the kind of girl that Bellatrix and Narcissa admired for her convictions, and they would have liked to have been friends with her; but pure blood social circles ran too small, and their mother would have shipped them both directly off to Beauxbatons if she found out that her _'_ _darling_ _girls were_ _associating_ _with that slag.'_

However, Bellatrix was famous for her moments of rebellion, and at one point, there was a short-lived rumor that linked Blaire and Bella together romantically. It was never confirmed nor denied to Narcissa, not that she would have cared one way or the other, but she had her suspicions that it was less of a whirlwind romance and more of a casual _'girls helping girls'_ relationship born of a specific kind of need that a boy simply couldn't satisfy.

Blaire tapped the Gryffindor boy on the shoulder once, twice, three times, trying to get his attention to let him know that they weren't alone. Blaire certainly wasn't shy, and Narcissa didn't particularly care, either– but it was only fair to let the poor git know that he was putting on a free show. When he didn't answer to the fourth tap, she rolled her eyes and let out an indignant sigh before drawing her hand back and popping him on the back of the head.

Immediately he drew back from her, one of his hands flying to caress the less-than-tender point of contact. Blaire pointed out towards Narcissa while eyeing him, giving him a look of _'you horny idiot,'_ as Narcissa casually passed them with a small wave and a chuckle before mumbling the password and stepping through the wall. Blaire returned the friendly greeting before Narcissa disappeared from view.

Before she came within three meters of her dormitory door, she already heard the sounds of Bellatrix talking loudly and enthusiastically. Narcissa rolled her eyes and cast a silencing charm around the door before she entered, passively making a silent prayer to whatever diety that was listening that hopefully Bellatrix hadn't said anything worth eavesdropping on.

"–and _then_ that little bint had the audacity to tell me that I was disgusting for wanting to go in the first place!" Bellatrix was animatedly pacing the room, hands waving in the air in front of a rather disinterested looking looking Juniper Parkinson.

"Ladies," Cissy announced her presence in the midst of her sister's rant. Bella's heels practically skittered across the wood floorboards at the greeting. Juniper looked relieved to have a companion to aid her in mollifying Bella's mood, but it appeared that Narcissa's presence only served to amplify whatever foul temperament she was already in.

"Something wrong, Bell–" she began to ask, but her sister had no interest in pretending to care about pleasantries.

"You'll never _believe_ what that prudish little Fortescue twat did!" She bellowed, steam practically shooting out of her ears and through her untameable onyx curls.

Narcissa exchanged a skeptical look with Juniper, who was leaning up against one of the posters of her bed, studying her nails. Evidently, she didn't feel nearly as urgent about whatever the Gryffindor had done as Bellatrix did. Alice Fortescue certainly wasn't a threat by any means, so she was genuinely curious about what had her sister so worked up.

"What happened, Bella?" Cissy asked as she stepped toward her sister, attempting to make her sympathy appear as ardent as possible. 

She was unabashedly seething, and yet, her demeanor also had a vaguely unhinged quality to it as she spoke– hair wild, eyes wide, erratic arm movements as she spoke. Bellatrix had always undeniably been the most... _erm_... _passionate_ of the Black sisters, but whatever Alice had done, it must have been particularly bad. In fact, it appeared as though it was probably a miracle that she even made it out _alive_.

As Bellatrix visibly struggled to recollect her composure, Narcissa exchanged another glance with Juniper. "I'm assuming she told you already?"

Juniper shrugged non-committally, tossing a lock of lustrous dark hair behind her shoulder. "Something about some guy named Riddle," she mumbled, brows knit together and looking entirely flummoxed by the intensity of the situation.

"Riddle?" Narcissa parroted the distantly familiar name back to her sister. "The man you told me about not too long ago who was going to the Ministry?"

Bellatrix swiftly shut her eyes and drew in a shaky breath, arms stiff against her sides and her hands clenched into fists. With her eyes still wrenched tight, she gritted through her teeth, "I made the mistake of telling Alice that I was going to go to Mister Riddle's meeting at the Ministry," her eyelids fluttered open and her lips momentarily pressed shut before taking another breath.

It was a silly decision for her to tell Alice about it in the first place. Even at the best of times, Alice showed a shaky reluctance at accepting the idea of the preservation of blood purity. Being that she was a pure blood herself, as well as the man she was romantically involved with being a member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, it hardly made any sense as to why she would be opposed– but that was neither here nor there now.

What was done had been done, and Narcissa had a sneaking suspicion that she would be the one left to smooth the ruffled feathers left in her sister's wake.

Yes, the Black family would always preach from the rooftops of the importance of keeping the magical blood lines pure. After all, their family motto was _Toujours Pur,_ and they had every intention of living by that, but that didn't mean that they lacked any and all sense of self-preservation when it came to skeptical parties.

"When she asked who he was and why he was going before the Ministry," her tight sneer almost immediately loosened into a smug grin while her fists unclenched and she ran her fingers once through her dark halo of curls to tame them. "Well, I was only _happy_ to oblige her curiosity with a complete and unabridged answer, of course–"

"Oh, Bellatrix," Narcissa sighed while gingerly massaging her temples. How could her sister have been so foolish? It's not as if Alice had been cunning enough to lay a trap for her to fall into– quite the opposite actually! She knew that no matter what tale Bella decided to spin, that the most accurate retelling of events would reveal that Bella had goaded Alice into asking more and more questions, despite not wanting to have anything to do with it at all.

Immediately, the coil of unreasonable angst retightened around the sanity of the eldest Black sister. She began pacing the room again, the heels of her shoes tapping rhythmically against wood, and when Narcissa spotted her sister's wand on the night stand, she quickly and quietly made a beeline towards it to pocket the wand and hide it until later, lest Bella decide to do something irrational with it.

"She had always been a bit _off,_ " she resumed with a huff, "but we had been making excellent progress with her until that massive, trembling _buffoon_ came along!"

"You mean Longbottom?" Narcissa already knew the answer. This wasn't the first time Bella ranted about Frank's influence on Alice, and she was certain it wasn't going to be the last, either.

 _"Of course_ _I_ _mean Longbottom!"_ She practically hissed across the room in response, her arms cast out wide with an aggressive stance. "Who else would I be talking about, Cissy?!" She allowed a humorless laugh to escape from between her lips, and then it was as if she'd never paused from pacing at all. If she kept on like this, Narcissa had no doubt in her mind that the floors would start to reveal her incessant walking patterns.

"I mean, _honestly!"_ Bellatrix scoffed. "It's absolutely disgusting how easily she let a man dictate her beliefs! It's not as if he possesses exceptional wealth!" She eyed at her night stand, undoubtedly looking for her wand, before resigning on the idea altogether in order to pursue more laps around the room. "He's not even good looking!"

Juniper snickered, but attempted to cover the sound with a cough.

"You must admit that none of us really know what her _true_ feelings are, though!" She laughed. "It was really starting to feel like we were making progress with her before that idiot–"

"Alright," Narcissa interrupted with a deep sigh. "So Alice asked you about your plans," and she was reluctant to find out the answer to her next question: "what happened after that?"

Bella's familiar grin returned to her face as she stepped to the foot of her bed. She gave a contented sigh, "well I hexed the little bint of course! She's not going to talk to _me_ like that in front of the whole school!"

Letting out a satisfied giggle, she fell backwards into the sea of emerald and charcoal colored blankets on her bed.

Narcissa's eyes widened to the size of teacup saucers before rapidly blinking in disbelief. "Bella! You can't just go around hexing people with reckless abandon!" She stepped to her sister's side and leaned against a bed post, peering down at her. "Andromeda has already done enough with her selfish antics– the last thing our family needs is another scandal."

The elder sister made a dissatisfied mewling sound at the realization. "She was trying to make a fool out of us and our beliefs–"

"That's the key word though, dear sister!" Cissy interrupted her. "She was _'trying.'_ But did she succeed? Do you now consider yourself a fool?"

Bella entertained the question with a despondent shake of her head.

Juniper just rolled her eyes and flashed a quiet wave at Narcissa, indicating her departure for the evening. Narcissa returned the kind gesture before turning back to her sister to further admonish her for her rash decisions, but all three girls' attention were drawn to the door when it swung open before Juniper ever had the chance to leave in the first place.

"Blaire?" Juniper greeted the unexpected guest with a hint of shock in her voice. She wasn't entirely wrong to be shocked, either– Blaire never just _dropped_ _in_ unannounced, and with consideration to how late it was, and after the precarious topic of conversation between the three of them, it only served to give Narcissa an even greater sense of unrest.

"Hi, ladies!" Blaire chimed into the room as she lazily leaned against the door frame. Her dark, tight curls framed the contours of her face, the sharpness of her cheekbones complementing the pillowy soft allure of her full lips.

"Don't look so frightened, I'm not here to rain on your parade," she chuckled as she pushed off of the door frame and came slowly sauntering over to Narcissa. _Sweet_ _Salazar_ _, it was unfair just how beautiful this girl_ _was_. You didn't even have to be attracted to women to appreciate just how stunning she was, and she knew it. She used her body like a weapon in the way she swayed her hips as she walked, threatening to give anyone a heart attack if she so chose to grace them with a wink or a smile.

"I'm actually here to talk to you," she whispered to Narcissa as she shortened the distance between them. "Well, ' _I'm here to relay a message_ ' is what I should have said," she clarified with another wickedly lovely smile.

"A message?" Narcissa echoed.

Blaire nodded. "I have it on good authority that your presence is currently being requested in the library."

The blonde's brows furrowed, and she briefly considered asking Blaire to repeat herself, for fear of misunderstanding. "It's nearly midnight, and I spent all day in the–" she blinked once. Twice. "Who's asking for me?"

"Dunno," Blaire shrugged while casually unbuttoning the top two buttons of her uniform blouse. She pivoted on the balls of her feet to approach the exit of their dorm, but she paused in the doorframe again. "Just relaying a message," she winked over her shoulder.

Narcissa peered over at the clock on the wall in the back of the room. Only a few minutes until midnight.

"Speaking of which," Bella finally sat up straight in her bed. "Where have _you_ been all day?"

Juniper, who, for whatever reason, had decided to linger again, giggled at the question over by their desk. Before Blaire had the chance to step away, she also heard the question and listened intently.

"Studying," Narcissa confidently retorted, not missing a beat.

"Right," Bella eyed her for a moment, completely disbelieving in her sister's claims.

"But I suppose my time at the library is far from over for the day," Cissy conceded with an exhale that took a bit too much effort to sound resigned. She started toward the door where Blaire was still standing, looking her up and down with a smirk. "Something wrong, Blaire?"

She gave another passive shrug as she moved out of the way of the doorframe, stepping back into the room in order to let Narcissa through– but before she did, she put her palm on the blonde's chest and gave her a cheeky smile. "Just want to warn you to keep an eye out for the penitent boyfriend downstairs. He was looking rather morosely into a half-empty bottle of Firewhiskey."

She must have been waiting for Narcissa to say something back, but when she didn't, she let her hand fall from it's tender placement on Narcissa's chest, now allowing her to freely pass through.

Before walking from out of their view, she looked over her shoulder and gave the three girls a wave and a bid goodnight. By the time she reached the first step that led to the common room, she could have sworn she heard Blaire say something along the lines of, _"June, would you mind giving Bella_ _and_ _I a moment? It's been a while since_ _we've_ _spoken and_ _I'd_ _like to catch up."_

She rolled her eyes in amusement. Only _her_ sister would manage to keep up with romantic flings even after becoming engaged.

When she reached the dimly-lit common room, it was just as Blaire had warned her: Thomas was lying by himself on the leather sofa in front of the fireplace, which was starting to gently smoke as the last dull embers flickered and burnt into ash. The muscles in his bare chest tensed, and his grip at the neck of the aforementioned Firewhiskey bottle tightened when he saw her from his peripheral vision.

He didn't turn to look at her, and she was more than happy to return the favor. Intent on ignoring him, she made it as far as the marble pillars that stood only a few meters away from the exit before he abruptly sat up. He could have burnt a hole in the back of her head from how hard he was staring at her.

"And just where do you think you're going?" He called toward her, his speech surprisingly unslurred and coherent, despite the volume missing from the bottle in his hand.

Narcissa paused by the pillar, placing her hand on the cold marble as she briefly entertaining the idea of ignoring him. It was certainly fun to think about how he'd react to being ignored, but she had enough sense and self-preservation to know that it would only cause more problems for her in the near future. Instead, she turned her chin to her shoulder, a movement big enough to let him know that she acknowledged what he said, but with succinct body language that told him that she wasn't particularly interested in holding a conversation.

"Out," she replied tersely, fighting the urge to say something offensive.

He set the bottle down and rose from the sofa, and as if it was a reflex, she turned back to face the door and stepped away from the pillar. "Wait, Nari–"

He grabbed her wrist.

Surprisingly coherent _and_ fast.

"You know I don't mean the things I say," he deeply sighed and the reek of cheap alcohol on his breath made her stomach turn. "You just drive me crazy, love. I can't help the things I say when I'm around you–"

She managed to snatch her wrist from his hand, and in one swift motion, she turned and slapped him right across the cheek. "Don't you _dare_ touch me like that, Nott!" She practically hissed at him. "You may be absolutely sloshed right now, but surely I needn't remind you that I'm _more_ than capable of hexing you within an inch of your life!"

Thomas blinked at her, eyes glossy and mouth slightly agape. _Ah, there it was–_ all the proof she needed that he was entirely plastered– and she briefly toyed with the idea hitting him with a _Stupefy_ just for the fun of it, but she ultimately decided that she didn't deign to wasting any more of her magic on him.

Instead, she left him looking like a fool, standing alone and mouth hanging wide. Her mood had been thoroughly fouled by him, but it was satisfying knowing that she had rendered him speechless, inebriated or not.

And even though she didn't _truly_ know what, _or who,_ was waiting for her, she had a good guess– and while she was still making her way up from the dungeons, her imagination was already one floor above her, in the tight, shadowy space between two towering bookshelves.


	9. IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The following chapter features an illustration by AvendellArt. You can find more of their work on Tumblr and Instagram!
> 
> DO NOT REPOST.

When Narcissa successfully ignored Thomas' drunken pleas for forgiveness, he couldn't rid himself of the sour taste in his mouth. He stalked back over to the tufted sofa in front of the freshly cold and dark fireplace, and fell backwards onto the chilly leather, splaying out into the same position he'd been in before.

He stared at the ceiling, lost in thought for a moment. Two. Three. Ten. And then he lazily turned his head to face the coffee table where he'd previously set down the bottle of Firewhiskey so he'd have both his hands to capture Narcissa's. Little had he known then, his attempts would be futile, and the only thing that seemed to want him back was the glass bottle of spicy liquor.

He stared down the neck of the bottle, entranced by the way the liquid sloshed around on the inside, and for a second he fantasized about drowning in it. His ex-best-mate had effectively stolen his girlfriend - _erm, future wife -_ from him, and all he could manage to do was sulk about it. He knew he was stubborn for not apologizing for his bull-headed actions in a way that Narcissa deemed suitable, but the bird had to have known that heartfelt apologies simply weren't in his repertoire. Sure, he'd _meant_ the apology, and while he _may_ have came across as crude and disingenuous, he knew that he'd meant it.

For Merlin's sake, what did she expect him to do? Fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness? _Absolutely not_ , he scoffed to himself.

If this last interaction with her had come a day sooner, he would have been panicking about the frailty of his relationship. The prospect of losing the best quim he'd ever had was enough to send any normal bloke into a tailspin, let alone the fact that the quim in question was attached to one of the most beautiful and _the_ most wealthy witch in the entire Wizarding World.

But he had no more reasons to fret, because tonight he had something to celebrate. It was high time for the Nott family's slipping reputation to have its come-up, and the promise for brighter days was the folded piece of parchment that had been sealed with the Black family crest which sat on the coffee table in front of him.

This time, the letter had looked almost identical to the last one, only _this_ letter had his own name on it, unlike the last one that he'd intercepted from Narcissa's owl in the Owlery. Funny enough, they had very similar contents.

The one he'd taken from Narcissa's owl was not unlike the one that her eldest sister had received- also postmarked from Cygnus and Druella, and _also_ containing their plans to arrange for her to have an advantageous and auspicious marriage.

Of course, the Nott family hadn't been on the Black family's list of potential mates for their youngest daughter, but when Thomas had been quick to send his own reply that said something along the lines of _'as soon as Narcissa shared the letter with me,_ _I_ _knew_ _I_ _had to respond. She and_ _I_ _are madly in love, and so_ _I_ _have enclosed my offer for her hand in marriage.'_

In comparison to the Black family fortune, it was a meager amount. However, Thomas new that he had time on his side. With Narcissa being only the age of sixteen, not a single wealthy or powerful wizard had thought to submit proposals for her yet - they'd all been too transfixed with their machinations to marry the eldest two sisters - but now that Bellatrix was spoken for, and Andromeda had come out as a mudblood's whore, he knew that the offers for Narcissa would be pouring in post haste.

Whenever he received a response only two days later, he almost felt the need to dive head first into the Black Lake simply because he didn't believe it was real– like someone just pinching him wouldn't be enough to satisfy the voice in the back of his head that was telling him it was too good to be true.

It was an acceptance of his offer, signed by Cygnus Black himself.

Thomas took another large swig of the drink, reveling in the way it burned his tongue and tingled all the way down his throat. Suddenly, he felt the need to renege on his previous allowance of her being able to explore whatever little extracurricular romances she pleased, because now, she would belong to him; not only in the eyes of the law, but her very own family.

Besides, cheating was such an ignominious habit for the future Misses Nott to have.

He chuckled to himself as he took another drink.

☆

Narcissa had no clue what to expect when she walked into the library, but it appeared to be entirely empty. Maybe she misheard Blaire? Or perhaps Blaire misheard whoever it was that told her to relay the message? It was fifteen minutes past midnight now, and even though she'd hardly traversed the first half of the stacks in an attempt to locate the anonymous summoner, she was anxious to return to her dorm.

She paused in front of the librarian's desk that sat in the dead center of the library, crossing her arms as she impatiently looked around through the dark. Scanning row after row of shadowy bookshelves that spanned various topics and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she paused when her eyes reached the far, back corner of the room.

Ironically enough, it appeared that there was a glow coming from a candle that had barely been flickering in the Dark Arts section. _How clever,_ she dryly thought to herself, entirely unentertained by the comedian that her unidentified summoner thought themselves to be.

When she turned the corner of the first wall of tomes, she was, admittedly, a bit surprised to see Lucius' towering form leaned up against the shelf, peering down at a grey, leather-bound book in his right hand, with his left slipped inside the pocket of his trousers.

If she was being honest with herself, she was a tad miffed that she didn't feel more self-assured in this situation. This was the first time she would be speaking with him since she had used Thomas to invoke jealousy from the Prefect, and while it had been a flawlessly executed plan that she impressively improvised, he didn't give her the satisfaction by groveling. Not visibly, at least.

With her spine stiff, arms crossed, eyes narrowed, and school shoes planted to the floor, she stood still and waited for him to state his reason for calling her down here.

But his nose remained buried in the book in his hand.

She shifted her weight onto one foot as she uncrossed her arms, but only to ball her hands into fists and rest them on her hips. _Surely_ he had noticed her. He was just being obstinate, and they both knew it– but she refused to succumb to his act of perfunctory indifference. She knew that, deep down, he was practically reeling for her to break the silence first.

Little did he know that she could be _just_ as stubborn as he was.

So she stood.

And even though the clock was steadily, audibly ticking, she was grateful to have something break up what would have been an undoubtedly deafening silence.

He turned a page.

Narcissa decided that she didn't enjoy this feeling very much. Being ignored. She was wholly used to her ability to command the attention of any boy that she stepped into the general vicinity of, and the fact that Lucius seemed to be the exception, it– well... it _bothered_ her.

In fact, it was mind boggling. How could this boy, in the breadth of less than a single semester, go from someone who she hardly paid any attention to, to someone who suddenly made her feel like she needed to remind herself to breathe? Surely it had nothing to do with the way he kissed her on the night of the ball, or how he rolled his sleeves up to his elbows when it was too warm in the Great Hall, or how the corner of his mouth twitched into a devilish smirk when they were talking about–

The sound of him turning another page interrupted her train of thought.

If he had been anyone else, she would have let out a resentful huff. She was the perfect mix of her older sisters: part of her was logical and straightforward like Bellatrix, while another part of her was an idealist and a hopeless romantic like Andromeda. Before she began her flirtatious acquaintanceship with Lucius, the combination of the dualities of her sisters was useful. She felt that it made her a master at navigating romantic and platonic relationships; she learned the art of using her emotions to manipulate others to her benefit. At least, that was until the platinum Slytherin Prefect came along.

It quickly became frustrating, like two sides of herself were at war with one another, but somehow when she was around him, when they drew closer together, her inner thoughts ceased their ruthless crossfire almost immediately.

The hand that had been resting in his trouser pocket pulled out and raised to adjust the green Prefect badge on his tie, mindlessly reinforcing the backing on the pin before he lowered it again, this time to hold the corner of a new page, anticipating the need to turn it soon.

She wasn't sure if it was the lighting, but she was fairly certain that she might have seen him fighting a smile.

With her fists still planted on her hips, she stepped closer to him and cleared her throat, all while intently watching him. But perhaps _'admiring'_ would have been a better descriptor in this particular circumstance.

Without any hesitation, his procellous eyes broke away from the text in his hands, and they instantly found hers as if they were connected by magnets. Although less than two seconds had passed since she finally verbalized her arrival, his eyebrow quirked with curiosity and his whole face glinted with an unrelenting smugness.

 _Bastard_.

"I'm certain you don't need me to tell you that it's far past our curfew," she re-crossed her arms and leaned back against the bookshelf opposite to him, raising a blonde eyebrow right back to him.

"You mean to say _your_ curfew?" He retorted with a playfully sardonic tongue. His book was still open and comfortably resting in his hands, although he did begin to absently tap the cover with the forefinger of his hand that cradled the leather spine. He was thinking rather intensely about something, despite doing his best to appear reticent.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes like an insolent child at the needlees reminder of his socio-educational hierarchy. "Silly me," she grumbled to herself, only loud enough for him to have heard that she said _something_ _,_ but low enough to not be able to make it out clearly.

Without daring to break his gaze from her, he shut the book in his right hand and returned it onto an empty space on the shelf behind him. She wasn't sure whether to find the casual, yet fluid movement overly dramatic or ridiculously attractive, but as soon as she heard the deep, bassy sound of the hardcover tome shutting closed, she felt the same irresistible pull toward him that she experienced the last time she spoke with him– _truly_ spoke with him.

She still cursed him for the way he made her feel last time. As if he was doing her some sort of favor by apologizing for kissing her– treating her like she was another man's property that he'd somehow appropriated.

"I'm not going to be stuck polishing old potion bottles with Slughorn," she warned him, pushing the tingling feeling in her stomach aside, "so I'd prefer you state your business so we can leave without getting caught and being given detention."

Still leaning back against the wall of books, he crossed his arms as if to mimick her stance, _"I_ _f_ on the off chance someone sees us down here–" he raised a finger to silence her before she even had a chance to protest, "–which they _won't,"_ he continued, "they'll see that you're with me and leave us alone. As long as you're with me, nothing bad is going to happen."

She let out a breath but remained silent in anticipation of him saying whatever it was that he felt needed to be said, as if his last statement wasn't enough. She wondered if he meant it, like a Freudian slip, or if he simply didn't think too hard about what he was saying and it just happened to come out that way. The tip of his tongue grazed his top teeth while he peered down at her, heavy and calculating– watching her, committing her to memory, and it seemed like the playful mood that he'd been in only moments ago had slipped away.

There air between them was heavy with immeasurable sensations which she wasn't quite sure what to make of them. Now, more than ever in her life, she was confused. She felt as though she was stumbling down a winding path with no end in sight, the horizon no longer clear in the distance. It was a future that once felt dull and mundane at its core, one of duty and obligation to her ancestry.

But perhaps the haziness of it all was a beacon of impending change.

He pushed away from the bookcase, arms still crossed, eyes still locked on hers, and he inhaled before quietly resigning to her request for brevity. "I wanted to talk to you–"

 _"Evidently,"_ her tone was nearly a hiss, and neither of them were quite sure if the tempestuous remark was sincere in its biting intent, or if she was just trying to flirt in the comfortable, sarcastic manner that they'd become accustomed to.

His brows furrowed at the interruption as his hands tightened around his arms, seemingly without noticing his own movement. "I beg your pardon, Miss Black?"

She smirked. "It's past curfew, and we're in a dark library, _alone,_ " she reminded him of their compromising surroundings in an almost song-like tone. "I would certainly _hope_ there was a pressing matter that you felt the need to discuss immediately."

For the first time since looking up from his book, his eyes broke from hers. His gaze traveled down to the tip of her nose, hugged the curve of her lips, traced the soft contour of her jaw, and then dropped off to the stack of tomes behind her. It wasn't at all a look of shame, but one of introspection. After taking a moment to consider her words and what they implied, a cheeky grin returned to him.

"That does seem like quite the scandal," he coyly agreed, taking another step toward her and making their distance much more scarce. "Are you sure I shouldn't be questioning why you so easily followed the call of a boy, to whom you're not betrothed, past curfew?"

Her demeanor should have shifted. She _should_ have taken offense, and perhaps if the accusation had come from the mouth of anyone _but_ Lucius Malfoy, she would have. She swallowed. "Are you questioning my virtues, Mister Malfoy?" She asked.

His silvery eyes flitted back to meet her once more. "No, no, of course not," he quietly replied, his voice low enough that one would have thought he was only speaking to himself. He backed away again, rolling his shoulders back slightly and pushing away a piece of hair that had fallen into his face. "I suppose that I just wanted to congratulate you on your engagement."

She felt a chill run down her spine, her mind immediately registering what he'd just said. She wasn't sure whether to feel angry or confused, or if she should simply laugh at the situation. "I told you, Malfoy, Nott and I aren't engaged. Just because my sister is being arranged to marry someone else, doesn't mean I am."  
It all felt oddly reminiscent of the last time she spoke with him, and she didn't like it.

Lucius cocked his head to the side, confused and visibly searching his mind for the memory to recall the exact conversation that made him broach the subject in the first place. "Nott told everyone in our dorm a few days ago that your father put out a notice for your hand," steel eyes trained on her, assessed her features for a reaction. Possibly even searching for a lie. "He couldn't contain himself when he received a letter saying that your father accepted his offer–"

"He's lying!"

It was the only thing that Narcissa could manage to choke out through the pain of her suddenly throbbing temples. It was quite possible that her tone made _her_ seem like the liar, but what was there to fib about? She hadn't received any mail from her family all semester. The only correspondence she saw from them at all was the two letters that Bellatrix had received. It wasn't necessarily odd for the girls' parents to not communicate with them throughout the semester, but she certainly had no reason to believe that they'd leave her in the dark over something like this– especially when Bellatrix had at least gotten a _bit_ of information.

Still, it begged the question of why Thomas was going around and lying about something like this. Everyone already knew that he was dating her, and he wasn't the type of person who got enjoyment out of the drama that surrounded two teenagers marrying one another. In fact, when Andromeda ran off with her mudblood lover, Thomas used to get visibly agitated every time Narcissa wanted to vent to him about the situation and the turmoil it caused her family. He had no reason to lie, and her family had no reason to hide such a huge installment against her autonomy like this. Surely they would have had the sense to wait at least another year so she could finish school. Right?

"Are you alright, Miss Black?" His gentle voice pulled her out of her thoughts, and she became acutely aware of how hard she was breathing.

She nodded. "Yes, I'm fine, I suppose I just..." she fought the tremble in her lip. "I have quite a bit to think about now."

The tension in Lucius' face showed just how troubled he was by the entirety of the situation– as if he felt he'd just uncovered a large secret that should have remained hidden. He also found himself wondering why his old friend would boast about such an accomplishment if it simply wasn't true. Surely he'd know better than that, because the truth would eventually have to come out. For all intents and purposes, Nott was capable of being a massive dunce, but Lucius never knew him to be the type that would paint himself into a corner that would only lend itself into mass amounts of public humiliation.

"So it's not true?" He nearly begged for the relief of a straightforward answer, despite his gaze absently traveling off again.

Narcissa shook her head, her eyes now glassy and deep in thought. Lucius swallowed, trying to stave off the question that was perched at the tip of his tongue.

"Lucius?" She quietly called for his distant attention.

He ignored the request that he typically would have met with amenable warmth. "You must want to marry him at the very least though, right?" Memories of her pulling herself closer to kiss Nott immediately fogged his forefront of his brain.

She shook her head again. "No, Lucius." She replied breathlessly.

His eyes rapidly found hers again, darkening in the process when he finally looked at her, _saw her,_ and admired her leaning form against the wall of books across from him. It was a stare that she could have sensed, _felt,_ even if she hadn't been staring back at him with equal intensity. She watched the flex of muscles in his face as his jaw tightened and his eyes steeled.

He took another step toward her, the light footfall of his dragonskin shoes echoed around them, and– much like her breath– whatever modicum of space that remained between them was slowly, veritably dissipating.

She felt her heart racing in her chest as they now stood toe to toe, her back pressed flat against the shelving and their necks craned, hers up and his down, in order to look at one another. She couldn't recall a single time in her life where she'd engaged in such a lengthy exchange of eye contact, only abetted by their individual competitiveness that wouldn't allow them to be the one to break first– but if she could choose anywhere in the world to become lost, it would have been his eyes, grey like calming rainfall.

For him, her eyes were like bright, warm Caribbean waters that he could've dived straight into without a moment of hesitation. To be lost at sea and to drown in them would have been a privilege that most would have reveled in– throwing him a life float would have been a disservice of the utmost disrespect.

She felt lightheaded from lack of breathing, and she'd only noticed whenever a lock of his hair fell from over his shoulder and landed in her face, momentarily forcing her back into reality, and thus, reminding her to catch her breath. Whenever she silently inhaled, both of his hands reached forward, and he pressed his palms against the shelves on either side of her that rested behind her back. She felt a chill, goosebumps traveling down her arms when his shoulders rounded over and he was nearly enveloping her.

Their faces, their lips, were mere centimeters away, and if one of them dared to move, it would have all been over. It certainly wouldn't have been their first kiss, but this one felt... different. It felt defining. It felt damning...

"I don't think its your virtues we should be questioning," he whispered down to her hoarsely, the gentle warmth of his words ghosting across her skin and sending more goosebumps down her neck. She raised one of her hands to push the strand of hair back over his shoulder. It was an intimate touch that resided in new, uncharted territory– contact that was comfortable and vulnerable all at once. "I think its mine."

...and maybe she wanted to be damned all along.

Narcissa propelled forward onto the balls of her feet and their lips crashed together somewhere in the middle. At that same moment, Lucius had leaned down, anticipating melting into her. It was a collision of two forces that longed, _hungered_ , for one another, and the velocity at which his body pressed into hers sent the towering bookshelf wobbling behind her.

He removed his grip from the shelving behind her, and instead replaced his hands to press her into himself, molding her shape to his. She leaned into his advances, her other arm now joining the one that had been pulling him down toward her, and the sounds of soft, breathy sighs filled the air when one of his hands traveled down to grip her bum through the fabric of her skirt. 

She felt a jolt of lightning in her stomach, and when her lips parted to catch a breath, he took the opportunity to capture her swollen lower lip between his teeth, holding it only for the length of a heartbeat before his tongue then traced the gentle bite marks, quickly followed by gaining entrance and tangling with hers.

Her fingers snaked up into his hair and when she gave it a gentle pull, she could have sworn she felt him shiver against her. It was an electrifying sensation, and she only longed to feel it again. She allowed her left hand to fall to meet his that had been cupping her arse. Their kiss remaining unbroken, she led his hand down her thigh and to her knee, where she hitched it around his hip. His other hand that had been pressed into her back took the same direction, and before she knew it, he'd hoisted her up around his hips.

Both of his hands fell to support her again, and when her own returned to his shoulders, she marveled at the feeling of the curves of his toned muscles below the white, cotton fabric of his shirt. She pulled away from their kiss and breathlessly looked down at him. At some point, he'd carried her over to a large wooden desk, and he was now setting her down on the edge.

She pressed her forehead to his, and the heady sounds of their labored, almost frantic breaths filled the air like a harmonious melody. She reached for this tie and started loosening the knot. His grey eyes had darkened, his usual silver had nearly been eclipsed with the black of his pupils.

"Kiss me," she told him between gasps for air, and when he leaned down to meet her lips again, she pulled the tie from his neck and allowed the emerald silk to fall to the floor, punctuated by the metallic sound of his Prefect's badge hitting the floor.

The heat that had been pooling in her stomach was greedy and unrelenting, and it kept telling her to give in to her most carnal instincts. She tightened the grip of her legs around his hips, using her heels to press against the backs of his thighs, sending his hips thrusting forward between her legs. She felt the last shred of sense and sanity exit her brain when she felt his arousal against her own, and they simultaneously moaned into each other's mouths.

Again taking the lead, her hands found his and she led them up to her chest, guiding them, granting them permission to her breasts. Ever the gentleman, it was a touch that he only gave himself permission to linger in for a moment before sliding up to hold the back of her head. She let out a whimper of frustration at the lack of touch that she desired from him, and decided that perhaps he needed some encouragement. She let her legs fall away from his hips and she leaned forward into his kiss.

Her hands trembled on his abdomen for a moment, hesitating, but then followed the line of his belt. When she reached for the buckle, she started to fiddle with it in an attempt at loosening it, wanting nothing more than to free him from the physical– and even mental– restraint.

She wanted him, and based on the way his body was responding to hers, he wanted her, too.

Trying to undo the buckle without looking down at it initially proved to be fruitless. After another blind attempt, she was successful in getting the black leather pulled from the metal buckle, and just as she gave it another tug to free it from his belt loops, he dropped his hand and laced his fingers in hers, keeping her from continuing.

She broke the kiss and met his steely eyes that were brimming with reservation. "I don't know, Narcissa," he confessed with a rough gravel to his voice.

"What's not to know?" She attempted to employ an innocent tone, already preparing to feel the sting of rejection despite his thumb absently brushing against hers– a small gesture that would go unnoticed by most, but it was enough for her to quell her fears.

"This has already gone beyond what most would consider acceptable flirtation," he mumbled as he brought her hand up to his mouth. He dropped his gaze and lightly kissed each knuckle before turning her hand over and kissing her palm. "I'm not sure this is something that I'd want to stop once I started," his lips had trailed down to the skin of her wrist, where he was lightly brushing them over the vein below the surface of her delicate, pale skin.

The warmth of each exhale against her skin brought on another wave of tingles that coursed through her bloodstream and down between her legs. "Then don't stop," she breathlessly commanded as he nibbled her wrist.

She pulled at his left hand again and led it right back up to the swell of her breast where she'd brought it before. She broke her lips away from his, and when his eyes fluttered open to peer down at her, she couldn't help the smile that was cracking through her exterior.

She felt that he was trying to pull his hand away from her chest, but she held it there. "Touch me," she breathed against him. "I want you," she insisted with a whimper, "and I want you to have me."

A deep moan tumbled from his mouth as he firmed his grip where she had placed it. He leaned forward to press his forehead against hers, and when his eyes closed, lost in the sensation of his better judgment slipping, she wrapped her legs back around his hips and pulled him closer.

With a hand combing through his hair, she pulled his head into the crook of her neck. He broke the contact of his palm against her trembling chest when he reached for the seam of where her shirt and skirt met at her waist. He began tugging at the fabric of her blouse to free it from the waistband, and once it was finally loose, his fingertips traced against the bare skin of her abdomen below her shirt, before stopping at the cup of her bra and hesitantly pausing.

She turned her head to pillow her lips against the sensitive skin below his jaw. When he let out an audible breath, her hand that had been in his hair gave it another tug– only more demanding this time. When his head tilted back, she trailed her lips to the center of the column of his throat where she created a gentle suction.

Perhaps he was gaining more confidence through her persistence, or maybe he was finally giving into his base instincts, but when her teeth grazed to the other side of his jaw, the hand that he had below her shirt pulled down the cup of her bra. What started as just another breathy whimper turned into a bawdy gasp when he rubbed the pad of his thumb across her nipple and back again.

She touched her forehead to his shoulder as she relished in the caress. After a few seconds of him rolling the taut bud between his thumb and forefinger, she again used her heels to push against the back of his thighs. She rolled her hips against his, savoring the feeling of his rigid erection that was only separated by a few layers of thin fabric.

"Fuck," he moaned against her ear as his hand fell from below her shirt.

She reached up and grabbed his collar, pulling him back to her lips as an order him to continue kissing her. "Tell me you don't want me," she teased him when they pulled away for oxygen after their tongues went to war with each other.

He leaned forward to kiss her again, evading her teasing remark, but she pulled away and watched him through lidded eyes and a raised eyebrow. Even if only to up the ante, she led one of his hands below her skirt to the upper part of her thigh. He hesitated still.

She watched his throat bob as he swallowed nervously. "But, your boyfri–" he started, but she was quick to cut in before he ruined the mood.

"Stop," she chided, her voice now arriving just barely above a whisper. She returned the touch of her right hand to his trousers, brushing her fingertips against the swell for only a second before slipping the button from the buttonhole and yanking down the zipper in one fast, fluid motion.

"I just don't want to cross any–" he began to retort again, but his counter argument was broken by another trembling gasp escaping through his lips when her right hand sunk into his trousers. Her left pushed his hand further up her skirt and between her legs, and she let her eyes flutter shut when she felt his knuckles gently graze her clit through her knickers.

"Unless that gets you off, I don't want to hear about it," she warned him as she leaned in to whisper in his ear. Whenever she pulled away, she watched as goosebumps visibly spread down the side of his neck, disappearing into the collar of his shirt.

She fought keep a smirk away at the realization.

Instead, she focused all her attention on the hand that was in his trousers, only separated by the material of his underwear. She leaned in to whisper into his ear again, "that _does_ get you off, doesn't it?" She teased.

His hand hesitated at the side of her knickers as she felt him stiffen at the accusation.

Rather than idly waiting for him get defensive, she continued her teasing. "You get off on the idea on fucking someone else's girl, don't you, Lucius?" She purred in his ear as she extended her right index and middle fingers to slowly brush down the length of his cock.

Tracing each raised vein that she could feel through the thin cotton with an agonizing pace, his hips bucked forward into her featherlight touch, desperate for more pressure.

"If that's the case then we can talk _all_ about it," she said, carefully drawing out each word against his earlobe. "Or is it the fact that he's a friend of yours?" She elicited a groan from his throat at the hypothesis as she took away the contact of her fingertips.

"Do you want that, Lucius?" She asked, playing up a whimper in his ear.

Another _"fuck,"_ was all he managed to verbalize as an answer, but her aforementioned exaggerated whimpers only turned into real ones as he sunk his teeth into the crook of her neck. Sliding her knickers to the side, she gasped as he pressed his thumb against her clit and started repeating a slow, circular motion.

In response, she grabbed for his cock and squeezed it through the cotton that restrained him. "I want you to fuck me," she breathed, "and while you fuck me, I can tell you all about my shitty boyfriend if that's what will make you come." He sucked at her neck and she staved off a louder moan. "Fuck me–"

He stopped abruptly, pulling his mouth from her shoulder and snapping his gaze to the direction of the library entryway off in the distance.

After hearing the far-away sounds of footfalls coming from the distant corridor, he reluctantly pulled back from her, staring down through hazy, hungry eyes. The sound was most likely only coming from other students, who were quite possibly doing the exact same thing that _they_ were doing.

Narcissa whimpered in protest at the loss of contact, but she ultimately understood that if their assumption was incorrect, they could both quite possibly be expelled for what they were doing.

"It's getting late," he told her with a deep, rumbling voice that could have set her skin on fire. "I have to finish my rounds, and you should go back to your dorm."

She felt the heat in her stomach cool down and disappear almost instantly.

She could very well have cursed him for stopping, but it was evident that he'd been enjoying himself just as much as she had. Parting was such sweet sorrow, but she watched as he fixed his belt and trousers, knowing that this wasn't going to be the last time.

She reached for his collar again to pull him down for a slow, searing kiss. Once parted, she pressed her forehead to his and nodded with acknowledgement of his need to return back to his tasks as Prefect. He pulled away from her and held out his hand to help her off of the desk, and once she was safely back on solid ground, he led her hand up to his lips and softly kissed each of her fingertips.

"Good night, Narcissa" he whispered down to her.

She stepped forward onto her tiptoes and indulged in one final, chaste kiss. "Good night, Lucius," she breathed against his lips before turning back on her heels and sauntering toward the exit.


	10. X

The following morning, Narcissa didn't immediately jump out of bed. She woke up before their enchanted music box chimed, and she simply decided to stare up into the evergreen canopy of her four poster bed. It wasn't that she was having trouble processing what had happened in the library in the early hours of the morning– in fact, she had probably replayed the events in her head over a dozen times before sleep finally claimed her, only for her subconscious to continue the cycle of playing it in her dreams.

What she _was_ troubled by was how adamant Lucius had seemed about Thomas' insistence on his claim over her. She didn't doubt that Thomas had been lying about speaking with Cygnus when they were on their date at Madam Puddifoot's, because he simply knew too much about the situation with Bellatrix, but the fact that he was going around gloating to the other Slytherin boys about it brought her deep discomfort.

The news of Bellatrix and Rodolphus hadn't seemed to have made it around the school yet; if it had, Narcissa wasn't privy to it, and she felt confident that Juniper would have brought it to the sisters' attention if that was the case. That being said, she didn't want to even begin to imagine the storm it would cause when the gossip of Thomas' supposed bethrothment to her spread beyond the small circle of sixth and seventh year Slytherin boys.

 _Especially not when people found out you're technically_ _cheating_ _with Lucius,_ her subconscious scolded her, but she did her best to push the thought away. She wasn't willing to succumb to a feeling of misplaced guilt, considering that Thomas was the first one to cheat.

She rubbed the sleep from her eyes until the vision behind her eyelids turned white. Stifling a groan of exhaustion as to not wake up Bellatrix, she turned her head against her pillow to peer over at the clock on the wall. She had fifteen minutes until the music box chimed, so, she decided to get an early start on the day.

When she rose from her bed, grabbing her uniform for the day, as well as an extra tube of lipstick to keep in her robe pocket, she turned to her black jewelry box and caught a glimpse of a second figure in Bellatrix's bed. The pillows at the head of the bed were entirely covered by two large masses of untamed, dark curls. With Bellatrix's marzipan colored arm looped around a caramel-toned torso, Narcissa had wondered why she hadn't noticed Blaire Zabini's sleeping form when she came back into the room last night.

But, she had, _admittedly_ , been a bit distracted.

She simply smiled and shook her head at her sister's incorrigibility as she retrieved a silver necklace from the jewelry box and quickly headed out the door, leaving the two undisturbed.

As much as she wanted to muffle the thought, she couldn't help but think that if she got an early enough start, she'd catch Lucius in the common room on her way out, or outside of Potions prior to class starting.

After a warm shower that went on for a bit too long after thinking of the way Lucius' voice rumbled against her ear, she cast a drying charm over herself, followed by a spell to arrange her hair in a tidy, low bun. Putting on her uniform was muscle memory at this point, and required virtually no active participating from her thoughts, but still, she took her time and focused her energy on _not_ thinking about the chaos that will inevitably rain down on her next time she saw Thomas.

Even though her shower had made her originally planned schedule lag behind, most of Slytherin house was still lazing about in bed, and the Common Room was almost entirely empty– save for two third years with dark circles under their eyes, who were frantically scribbling over a piece of parchment which was most likely a past-due assignment.

Her mind almost immediately jumped back to Lucius, _he's not down here, so that must mean_ _he's_ _already in class!_ _You_ _better hurry!_ But she was swift in extinguishing the subconscious desire that ran amok. It wasn't becoming of her to teeter on the line of obsession– she wasn't his girlfriend, and even if she _was_ , she was better than that! Still, she couldn't help but wonder if he was thinking about her, too; her stomach fluttered at the idea.

Narcissa was so lost in her thoughts that she nearly had to double take when she arrived at the entrance to the Potions classroom, but she quickly readjusted her head space before taking a deep breath and turning the handle on the door. Much to her disappointment, every single desk was empty. Not even Professor Slughorn had arrived yet.

She attempted to quell the discontentment that his absence caused as she took her seat and decided to pass the time by getting a head start on the new chapter in their textbook that the class was expected to begin today. It was nothing terribly advanced, and by the time her fellow classmates had started pouring into the room and taking their seats, she was nearly one third of the way finished with it.

With every seat except for the one next to her filled, Slughorn rose from his chair at the front of the room and waved his wand, shutting the door behind them with a dull click. Narcissa felt her stomach twist into an uncomfortable knot– not one that stemmed from misplaced jealousy or possessiveness over her Potion's partner, but because she had a strange feeling when the Professor flitted a curious, narrow glance over at Lucius' seat before shaking his head and turning toward the blackboard and beginning the lesson.  
Even though she was well ahead of her classmates in the chapter, she couldn't bring herself to raise her hand when Slughorn started to direct questions to class from the text.

She just... couldn't shake the bad feeling in her chest.

* * *

Approaching her final class of the day, Narcissa felt herself breathe a sigh of relief. Muggle Studies. It wasn't a class she felt a particular need to pay attention to because it wasn't required to complete her O.W.L.s or her N.E.W.T.s for the next year. It was a throwaway class that was led by a bumbling half-blood that lacked the spine that required him to corral the attentions of an unruly classroom.

Muggle Studies was also a class that she shared with her sister– whenever she bothered to show up.

Although the empty seat next to her in Advanced Potions that very same morning brought her a great sense of unease, the empty seat beside her in Muggle Studies was one she had grown accustomed to. However, today it had been filled by Bellatrix, who was looking wholly exhausted and thoroughly snogged. Narcissa hid a smirk, but did not dare to tease her sister about it.

"I'd offer to give you my notes from the past few days," Cissy leaned over to whisper to Bella, "but I'm afraid there aren't any."

Bellatrix raised any eyebrow to Narcissa. Bella never took notes even on the days she managed to show up to class, so she wondered why her sister thought to make a point of offering the ones she didn't have in the first place.

Narcissa laughed quietly, immediately catching on to what Bellatrix was thinking. "These Gryffindors keep interrupting anytime the professor starts a new subject," she replied, making a broad reference to the red-robed students surrounding them. Muggle Studies, like most classes, was a hybrid class that mixed houses– however, most students particularly detested it because, by nature, Slytherins and Gryffindors stood at nearly opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to sympathizing with muggles. "They sit quiet for the first ten minutes, and then everything descends into chaos as soon as one of them opens their traps."

Her desk mate shrugged and rolled her eyes, both of them noticing a Gryffindor boy in the front of the class that raised his hand, almost as if on cue. He was asking a question about muggle vehicles, despite the day's lesson being about muggle government and their similarities and differences to Wizarding government.

"Seems that no one takes this class seriously, and even the holier-than-thou, bleeding heart Gryffindors seem to agree," Bella smirked as she leaned back into her chair and crossed her arms across her chest. "Hopefully they'll never make this class a requirement in the future," she wished aloud. "It's a complete waste of time."

Both sisters watched on with amusement as the professor visibly struggled to get the day's subject back on track after it had been derailed, but as soon as he was beginning to make progress, two more hands shot up. Bellatrix snickered.

"Let's skip this," Bellatrix suggested in her normal volume now that the class had finally succumbed to the inevitably chaotic state. "We can go to Hogsmeade, grab a butterbeer," she proposed in a sing-song voice as she batted her eyelashes at her sister.

The blonde chuckled and rolled her eyes, already leaning over in her seat to retrieve her school bag to make their leave. Just as both girls were rising from their seats, a Hufflepuff Prefect burst into the room and called for two names, neither of which anyone heard above the sounds of students talking over one another.

"Sorry, could you repeat that?" Their professor urged the Hufflepuff, whose presence was now brought to everyone's attention, casting a silence above the classroom.

She shifted uncomfortably in her uniform shoes, looking a bit self-conscious now that all eyes were on her. She took a deep breath before repeating her announcement. "Alice Fortescue and Bellatrix Black have been requested to the Headmaster's Office."

The Black sisters exchanged a look with one another, as if one of them knew something that the other didn't. Both of their eyes snapped to the far corner of the room when Alice stood from her chair, glaring at them with a similar expression of skepticism and mistrust. The only thing that Narcissa could recall between the two girls was their argument that they had not too long ago that Bellatrix claimed she hexed Alice at the end of, but after a while, she thought that her sister had been lying simply because hexing another student on school grounds would have been reported immediately– not after the fact.

Narcissa reached for her sister's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze before settling back into their desk. "Rain check on the butterbeers?" She asked, attempting to smooth Bella's ruffled feathers.

"Yeah, see you," Bella quietly replied and returned the squeeze of her hand before letting go and following the nervous looking Hufflepuff Prefect out of the classroom, Alice Fortescue trailing only a few meters behind.

The rest of class was slightly more manageable than usual now that the Gryffindors had their fill of loud drama and unruly gossip– rather than actively trying to distract the teacher from the lesson, they spent the rest of the period whispering back and forth about their guesses as to why their two classmates had been called to the Headmaster's Office.

* * *

The moment the professor called for the end of class, Narcissa had been more than ready to go. She'd kept her books tucked away into her bag, and she was the first one to exit the classroom, dashing in the direction of the Headmaster's Office in an attempt to catch her sister as soon as she was leaving. She didn't care for the gossip at this point– she just wanted to make sure that Bellatrix wasn't in any serious trouble over anything.

Just as she veered to the right where the corridor split, she nearly ran headfirst into a gaggle of freckled redheads coming from the opposite direction. She fought her initial reaction to sneer at them, reminding herself of her mother's words to keep her composure in public places– _especially_ now that Bellatrix was seemingly in trouble– but the sight of the Prewett-Weasley clan was enough to make her hair stand on end.

"I suggest you keep to the correct side of the walkway, _Prewett_ ," she spat the name of the opposing student as if it was venom on her tongue. She stood still in front of the impenetrable ginger wall, not wishing to deign herself to side step and move around them. She was concerned for her sister, but she was obstinate enough to wait for them to move from out of her way.

Molly Prewett, the petite and curvy Gryffindor spitfire and long-time girlfriend of Arthur Weasley, stood toe-to-toe with the tall, aristocratic blonde. She was positively fuming– smoke damn near firing from her ears, wearing a crinkled brow and an unnecessarily dramatic scowl.  
It took only a fraction of a second for Narcissa to place Prewett's anger, suddenly remembering that she'd recently adopted Alice Fortescue as her new best friend ever since Alice fell out with the Blacks.

Arthur nervously tugged at his girlfriend's arm, murmuring for her to let Narcissa through and that it wasn't worth a detention. But all she did was continue to silently sneer up at Narcissa, and Narcissa stared back, still stubbornly refusing the move. She looked down and up and back down again at the the small Gryffindor, thinking what a pity it was that she associated so closely with mudbloods and half-bloods because she knew that the Flints' recently graduated son had a thing for redheads, and Narcissa got a cheap kick out of playing matchmaker. It remained a silent thought, however, because she knew it would send Prewett's blood to boil even harder, and she'd hate to have to hex her in self-defense.

Such things rarely ended well for Slytherins, no matter if the circumstance truly _was_ self defense.

She peered over at Arthur who was still trying to coax his lover away without being too physically forceful, and when Narcissa's flitted back to Molly, they trained on the tatty old scarf around her neck. She lost the battle of the smirk hiding behind her stiffened features, and that was what finally caused Prewett to crack.

"You _nasty_ little Black bints best stay away from Alice and the rest of us!" She barked, her shrill voice thick with resentment. It was obvious that she was trying to sound intimidating, but her combination of her small stature and shrill voice almost reminded her of the homely little rat of a mongrel that their governess brought to their home once before Druella banished it and threatened the governess' job.

"I beg your pardon?" Narcissa replied with a slight grin as she maintained a calm, cool voice.

Arthur cut into the conversation, looking back to his brother Bilius, most likely for backup. "I'm so sorry, she doesn't mean–"

"Your attempts at poisoning Alice's morals ends now!" Molly interrupted with another screech that was like banshee bails dragging across a chalkboard. " _She's_ not going to end up like you lot!"

It sounded, _almost,_ like a threat. But Narcissa knew better than to feel threatened by a witch of a lesser caliber than herself. If their father instilled anything in them, it was an unrelenting sense of superiority. _'This is what it means to be of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black,'_ he used to tell his girls with a proudly puffed chest. _'_ _No_ _matter where you go,_ _you'll_ _always command_ _anyone and everyone's_ _attention_ _from_ _the moment you walk into_ _a room_ _. Don't ever let anyone allow you to question that– to give in to inferiority is to admit defeat, and our ancestors did not claim their rightful positions at_ _the_ _top of the Wizarding hierarchy to be_ _defeated_ _by any_ _witch_ _or_ _wizard_ _that_ _is less than us.'_

"She'll never be like you!" Molly's left forefinger extended to poke Narcissa's shoulder as she continued to spit her obstreperous vitriol, her entire face consumed by a flush of red anger as bright as her messy mane.

Narcissa briefly glanced down at Molly's stubby, freckled fingers before looking Prewett in her eye and softly chuckling in her face.

Prewett's look of anger almost instantly switched to one of confusion when she realized that her threats fell on deaf ears. When she looked back at Arthur, she didn't notice Narcissa reaching forward to smooth out the old, knitted scarf with her elegantly long, manicured fingers.

The blonde wistfully sighed and made a tutting sound, her aquamarine eyes still fixed to the offensively tasteless knitwear. "Yes, that _would_ be a tragedy, wouldn't it, Molly?" She posed the rhetorical question in a light, chipper tone as she looked up to meet Prewett's stare. "In fact, I think it would be much better if she ended up," she made a broad motion to all of the hand-me-down school books in each of their arms, "like you all."

Narcissa shrugged as the corners of her painted lips quirked up, and before she could reach for her wand, Molly lept forward in an attempt to tackle her to the flagstone.

It was a series of movements that happened far too swiftly to be discernable to the human eye– _at least, from where Narcissa was standing_ – but when she ended up encircled pair of dense, muscular arms, she'd hardly had enough time to question who it was and why she hadn't ended up rolling around on the floor in a tirrivee with the ginger blood traitors.

"Oh, no you don't!" The familiar voice that belonged to the arms around her torso boomed down at her with agitation, and as she felt him dragging her away, she saw Arthur doing the same with Molly as Bilius trailed sheepishly behind them.

With her eyes rolling so hard from disdain that they nearly threatened to pop out of their sockets, Narcissa made one single, sharp thrashing motion to release herself from her captor. When she turned around and saw Thomas, looking as though he'd practically been slapped in the face, she almost felt inclined to do it– _again._

"Just what the hell do you think you're _doing_ , Narcissa?" He scolded her with an air of disbelief in his voice. "Have you gone mad?"

"I haven't done _anything_ wrong, Nott!" She returned his admonishing expression with one of her own. She paused as she patted down a wrinkle in her skirt, followed by pulling her wand from her sleeve. Thomas skittered back as if he was expecting her to use it on him, but Narcissa simply scoffed and rolled her eyes as she turned the tip of her wand on herself and used it to smooth her hair back down into the low bun she wore from before. "Worry not, _Nott,_ I'm not interested in lowering myself to waste my magic on the likes of you or the _peasant_ _pack_."

His bit his tongue –a practice that he very rarely utilized– before dragging it across the front of his teeth with a cynical growl as he leaned his face into his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Narcissa stifled a giggle at his obvious display of exasperation, but it was cut short as he started laying into the punishing accusations yet again. "I can't have you embarrassing yourself in front of everyone here, _especially_ not at the hands of a Weasley or a Prewett. We'd never live it down!"

She scoffed, crossing her arms at her chest and raising an eyebrow at the very audacity of his liberal use of the word _'we.'_ "I'll have you know that I was holding my own until that pig-headed _commoner_ decided to go rabid– and then _you_ came along and caused a scene by forcibly dragging me away when I was more than capable of hexing her into next week! If anything, _you_ embarrassed me."

Thomas trained his stair on the ground between them, rubbing his temples. Narcissa briefly wondered what was causing him to act like he took personal offense to the whole situation, but then she remembered that he wasn't her problem anymore.

"What happened?" He hesitantly asked with a breathy drawl.

The blonde shrugged, starting to turn her shoulder so she could resume her journey to her sister. "She decided it wise to apprehend me on behalf of Alice Fortescue. Apparently my sister and I have been _poisoning_ _her_ _morals."_

As if on some kind of perverted cue, Thomas' exasperation turned into a smirk and a matching glint of intrigue in his dark blue eyes. "I think I'd like to see that."

She stared at him blankly for the length of a single breath before slowly turning back and sauntering in his direction. "Oh, you'd like that, would you?" She posed his statement back to him as a dirty question, returning his playful smirk as her voice dripped with sin.

He was, once again, stunned with disbelief as he watched the leggy blonde approach him– but it only took a second before he shifted back into his normal cockiness, grinning back at her as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

"Do you know what _I_ would like to see, _Thomas_?"

He stares at her pillowy, pink lips with a hungry fixation, reveling in the way they form around her scintillating prose and how her tongue caresses her teeth with the pronunciation of each consonant in his name. He swallows at her question, unable to verbalize a response, but showing an undeniable interest, nonetheless.

 _"_ _I'd_ like to see you _stop_ running your mouth to everyone and saying we're to be married," abruptly, her lusty eyes and inviting lips twist back into a cruel, mocking sneer. "Because we most certainly are _not_ _!"_

Her knee flew forward to crash into his groin, but he was fast enough to pull away in just enough time to clear the debilitating impact. He uttered a sardonic laugh, not sure whether to be fuming with anger or washed with relief.

Now standing on opposite sides of the corridor, he decided to start letting her in on his secret: "oh, that's where you're wrong, Miss Black– you'll be a _Nott_ soon enough. I've been in an ongoing correspondence with Cygnus for quite some time now, and I'm pleased to say he accepted my offer."

She rolled her eyes and shot him a bored smirk. "And this is how I know you're lying. _My_ father would never want you uttering his name. _Especially_ not if he found out you're attempting to trap me in a marriage that I don't want, _after_ you've cheated on me, no less!"

He mirrored her sarcastic grin. "Seeing as you decided to run off with another man on the same night makes us even, I think." He pushes forward from the wall that he'd been leaning on to approach her again. The hallway began to flood with students on their way to the Great Hall for dinner, and he's mindful enough to soften his angered brow as he reaches for both of her hands to kiss her knuckles.

To any passing student, their embrace looked like a soft, quiet moment between two lovers, and Thomas was doing just as he said many weeks ago– _acting_ like a respectable pure blood and pretending to follow the etiquette was arguably more important than _actually_ practicing it.

Giving him a soft smile at the gesture which she found rather slimy, she quietly spoke down to him as his lips danced from one knuckle to the next. "I don't love you anymore, Thomas. In fact, I don't think I ever did. I've found someone else and I don't think I'll be needing your company anymore."

He returned her warm, manufactured smile as he pulled her into his chest for an embrace, and whispered against her ear. "Don't get me wrong, Narcissa. Lucius is a great bloke– used to be one of my best mates, even. So as my future wife," he ran his palms down her back at the word, "I'll make good on my promise and, for now, allow you to explore whatever little playground romance it is that you think you're having so that you can get it all out of your system before our wedding. No harm done, yeah?"

She pulled away and really, truly considered strangling him in front of their peers. Instead, she gave him another sweet smile. "I'm not your future wife _or_ your property, Thomas, and _I_ will explore any romances I wish without your permission. No harm done."

Narcissa freed herself from his embrace and turned on her heels, determined to make it to Bellatrix before anyone else decided to take a personal issue with her that day. Just as she was starting to take satisfaction in the dominating click of her heels against the flagstone, she heard Thomas casually call out to her, as if they didn't just engage in an infuriating exchange.

"You don't think it's strange for a Prefect to be tardy or absent from classes as frequently as he is, do you?"

She stops dead in her tracks. An uneasy shiver tumbles down her spine as she turns to look over her shoulder at Thomas, bearing an expression of dubious suspicion. "Sorry?" She asked, trying to sound absent. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"Lucius and I have actually spent a lot of time together lately." He swung his arms behind his back and casually shifted his weight between his feet, as though he was talking about quidditch scores. "In fact, last time we spoke, we talked about you–"

Narcissa interrupted her ex with another loud scoff. "He wouldn't entertain your immature drivel."

"You're correct," he confirmed, but his mouth twisted back into a wicked, smug grin before he continued. "Not until recently, at least– but as I was saying, we were actually discussing whether or not you seemed like the type of bird who likes tattoos."

She shook her head as if she was clearing a cloud that was hazing her brain. "Is that some sort of unintelligent, inside joke between the two of you? Is there a punchline I'm missing?"

He casually shook his head to negate her innocent assumption. Holding her stare, he raised an eyebrow with a look of sheer entertainment on his face.

The crowds in the corridors finally thinned to the point that they were almost empty again.

"I think you'll find out soon enough, though," he reassured her with a cursory tone as he cryptically tapped the sleeve of his left forearm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick update- the illustration by AvendellArt for Chapter III is now available! Simply flip back to chapter 3 and scroll to the bottom. :)


	11. XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is up a bit early since I'm going to be out of town tomorrow. Have a good weekend, everyone!

Narcissa had long-since trained herself to assume that _anything_ that passed through Thomas' lips was a bold-faced lie. It was a theory that she had proven time and time again– times which had often been at her own expense.

His penchant for dishonesty began rearing it's ugly head with minor, inconsequential things that seemed almost endearing at the time– like when he pretended that his favorite color was green after Narcissa had given him a green necktie as a One Month Anniversary gift. And sometimes she sat and wondered how a gesture as innocent as pretending to like a green necktie had snowballed into something as nefarious as his habitual infidelity.

Whenever he caught her in the hallway, _post-Prewett incident,_ she simply assumed that he had been fibbing again, or, perhaps he was trying to make an ill-timed joke that just didn't land. But on the fifth day in a row of Lucius not coming to Advanced Potions class, she began to wonder if Thomas hadn't been lying at all.

It had been a statement that was initially quite easy to brush off, especially considering the utter shock and disbelief she felt when she saw a piece of parchment addressed to her that had been left on her pillow that day, signed as being from Bellatrix. However, on this fifth, fateful day of having an empty seat for a potions partner, she wasn't sure how to appropriately divide her concerns for people that she cared about.

It seemed that her worst fears about her sister's impromptu meeting with the Headmaster had been confirmed– Bellatrix Black had been expelled from her academic studies at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on the grounds of performing an unauthorized hex, performing a hex without educational purposes, as well as performing a hex with harmful intent.

Of course, Bella's note hadn't alluded to _that_ at all! Instead, it had been Juniper who told Narcissa what had happened as she was in the midst of moving all of her clothes into Bellatrix's old wardrobe while Narcissa read the note for the tenth time in ten minutes.

_Cissy,_

_I've_ _begun my quest to finding happiness, as well as restoring pride and_ _respect_ _to our_ _family_ _name._  
 _I've_ _gone to London with Rodolphus, where we will be attending "you-know-who's" proposal at the Ministry together._

_As to conform_ _with_ _our mother and father's wishes, Rodolphus and_ _I_ _will be married this Friday afternoon. As much as I hate to admit to being wrong, he's_ _really_ _not_ _as bad as_ _I_ _thought_ _, and_ _I_ _look forward to you getting to meet him over the holiday._

_Don't_ _forget_ _that I love you, and_ _I_ _miss you already,_ _little_ _sister. Do try to behave yourself in my absence, and_ ** _don't_** _let Parkinson sink her slimy mits into our jewelry box._

_With love,_   
_Your sister, Bellatrix_

_P.S. For the love of Merlin,_ **_stop_ ** _shagging your ex._

She kept the parchment in her pocket wherever she went to give herself peace of mind. It had been a hellish week already, and with each passing day, she only felt more and more isolated. Without a shadow of a doubt, Narcissa knew _just_ how lucky she was to have her sisters with her for the entirety of her academic career, and realistically, she knew that her sixth year would have been her final year with them if they hadn't both left anyhow. Still, the unexpected abruptness of it all had rattled her to her core, and she found herself avoiding extracurricular activities for fear of running into Molly or someone similar and not having any backup.

It was then that all of the minute, countless details came tumbling down on her psyche as if they'd been stacks of books which had piled high into an apogee of foreboding uncertainty.

What was going to happen to Bellatrix? How was she going to complete school now that she had no one except for, _maybe,_ Juniper to look to for support? And _what_ in Merlin's name had Thomas meant about Lucius and tattoos?

None of it sat right with her. It was all too specific– too many coincidences for her to be comfortable.

"Miss Black," the rapture in Professor Slughorn's voice couldn't have been contained even if he'd tried. He was leaned over his own desk, chubby fingers splayed wide and flat against the desk top with his purple robes dusting the surface– dangerously close to the pewter cauldron that sat atop the burner in the middle. "You're still ahead in the chapter, is that correct?"

It technically wasn't _incorrect_ _,_ if you considered that she was indeed one chapter ahead of the class. But for her, it _wasn't_ correct. For her, she'd been slacking on her school work, because she'd normally be at _least_ two chapters ahead by now. While she certainly never overdid her studies to the point of being misconstrued as a mousy little swot, she did like to stay one step ahead of everyone else. So, for all intents and purposes, she gave the professor a simple nod rather than delving too deeply into the nuance of her response to the innocuous question.

"Excellent!" He beamed at her, entirely oblivious to the fact that the moment her bum hit the metal seat at the start of class, her brain had been so checked out of the lesson that she practically owed overdue fines to the library as penance. "Then you'll have no problems telling the class the best way Amortentia's effects can be reversed, as well as what ingredients can be found in an Amortentia Reversal Potion!"

She'd nearly forgotten that the class had been slated to review Amortentia and its properties for the upcoming week, but a small part of her fretted over it as a sliver of an unsightly intrusive thought crept across her memory– had she scared Lucius off after the library incident? Surely he knew that this week was supposed to be the much-dreaded _'love potion week,'_ as she heard the boys in the Slytherin Common Room call it. Had it been too much for him to bear? Was it possible that Thomas had been lying about Lucius all along and only used his absence as an excuse to get away with more?

She had to forcibly derail her train of thought, lest she look like a blubbering mess in front of her classmates. It was quiet, nearly unbearable, without the blond Prefect. But it felt like everyone had almost expected her to fail in the past week. To slip up and show signs of falling apart. Her tragedies were no secret to the general student body, and while it felt like half of her classmates were actively monitoring her – hoping to catch her in a moment of weakness – she started putting up walls in her brain that stowed the negative emotions and dreadful premonitions.

Without missing a beat, she painted on a smile that would have fooled even the most sensitive of empathic personalities. "The best method of reversal for the effects of Amortentia is simply waiting for them to go away on their own. However, while it's certainly the safest method, it _is_ the slowest considering that the effects of Amortentia can last indefinitely due to it's efficacy being entirely dependent on the skill of the brewer. In other words, it could last forever if the brewer had made it strong enough and re-dosed their subject frequently enough."

Slughorn, while furiously penning down her explantation in his personal journal, glanced up at her for a fraction of a second before allowing his gaze to fall back down to his notebook. "Yes, now continue– what can be found in a reversal potion?"

Well, _technically_ , there were two answers to that. Unsurprisingly, her Ministry-approved school textbook had an entirely different answer than the personal journals that could be found in the Black family library.

"The Amortentia Reversal Potion, at it's base, contains all the same ingredients as regular Amortentia– ashwinder eggs, rose thorn, peppermint, powdered moonstone, pearl dust, and rose petals." She sat forward in her seat, crossing her legs at the ankle. "However, the reversal comes in when the brewer adds in an ingredient that repulses the drinker. Of course, this can change drastically from one person to the next, so the widely-accepted solution is simply adding Bubotuber pus."

A small number of groans and remarks of disgust came from the students surrounding her at the reveal of the final addition to the potion, as if unanimously confirming the universally rancid ingredient. She stifled a chuckle at their reactions. What had they expected? The best way to reverse feelings of love and infatuation is to inject them with something irrefutably foul.

Narcissa absently stroked the feathers of her quill while she waited for her classmates to regain their faculties. Once they settled, she started to explain the second way. The Black way. "Now, there is another theory which I haven't _personally_ tested, but it has been cataloged by practitioners of ancient magic that by simply adding your own–"

"Thank you _so_ much for your exceptional explanation of the Amortentia Reversal Potion, Miss Black!" Slughorn interrupted, volume high and unusually animated– even for himself.

He broke his gaze and averted his attention to one of the locked drawers at the side of his desk. After taking a moment to rummage around, he produced a glass bottle full of sparking, rose-colored liquid. He held it up high above his shiny, bald head for the class to see. "Now, students, I will be passing around a vial of–"

"Professor," Narcissa returned the favor of his interjection. "I said that there were two ways to create the Reversal Potion. The second way isn't in our textbooks, and I'd really like to hear what my classmates have to say–"

"Miss Black, there is a _reason_ that there are no other methods in your textbook." He shifted the potion bottle from one palm to the other before pulling a yellowed handkerchief from his vest pocket, using it to wipe his beading forehead. From a distance, or perhaps if no one knew to look for it, they'd never notice it, but his hands were beginning to shake, with most of the concentration being at his fingertips. "It's simply because no other methods have been proven to be effective, and thus, are a waste of time to even discuss. Now, as I was saying, I will be–"

"If it's ineffective, then surely there's no harm in discussing different methods, right, _Professor_?" She spoke over the old wizard again, feeling like a match had been lit in her belly. It was warm and pleasant, and it ached to be freed. This was the first time that she had actively participated in classes ever since the chaotic events of the past week transpired, and for a moment, she resented Slughorn for attempting to shoot down her efforts.

The portly wizard wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue, blinking as he peered down at the floor, refusing to make eye contact with anyone else in the room. He appeared to be nervous, but the way he was blinking paired with the way he was hyperfocused on the floorboards made it seem like he was trying to remember something that was just out of his reach. The handkerchief, which had only been re-pocketed seconds ago, made an encore appearance with the young witch's unrelenting insistence.

"It doesn't do for us to dedicate class time to giving our attention to methods that don't work–"

"But we don't _know_ that it doesn't work," she pressed on, a sly grin passing across her face as she heard her fellow students start to stir behind her. They were whispering questions. They were interested. "I'd like for my classmates to hear the other formulation that I've been told about, and if it turns out that I'm incorrect, I will humbly accept the failure. Surely you can't deny that failure is part of the learning process?"

The old Potions Master stood ramrod straight in front of his chalkboard. Behind him, an enchanted piece of green chalk floated with attention as it waited to write down whatever Narcissa was about to say. He was silent to her pleas.

And for Narcissa, sometimes the absence of being explicitly denied was just as good as being given express permission.

"As I was saying," she resumed with a pleasant chime, "this is ancient magic, so I can't say for sure if it works, but it's been said that if you start brewing a fresh batch of Amortentia in time to be completed by a new moon, the brewer and the drinker must separate the potion into two separate vials, at which time they will add six drops of blood from their palms to each other's potions."

Her classmates stirred again, but this time, it wasn't out of morbid curiosity– it was just plain morbid – such is the way most people became when discussing blood. Although, Narcissa thought that it was a bit sad that people got so squeamish when talking about blood magic. It was an average topic of conversation in the Black household, for the very wards that protected their homes was reinforced with blood magic; every single piece of jewelry that bore their crest was forged with blood magic.

Blood magic, as she understood it, was not inherently good or evil. Like any magic, it does exactly what it's told to do. It's all about the intent of the witch or wizard utilizing its powers.

"Why blood? And why during a new moon?" A Gryffindor boy popped up behind her to quell his curiosity. "It all just seems so specific."

Narcissa gave a slight shrug of one shoulder before flitting back to watch Slughorn. "It's said that the blood makes the potion bitter, but because the DNA of that blood is tied with only one specific witch or wizard, that the drinker will then be inexplicably severed from the brewer. The new moon is important because it signifies a clean slate."

The bulbous professor remained quiet, standing still at the front of the class and carefully observing the exchange with a precarious twitch to his right eyelid. For a moment, Narcissa thought that he looked similar to their Arithmancy Professor when he told old tales of Gellert Grindelwald was rising to power.

She vaguely remembered hearing her parents talking about Slughorn before Bellatrix and Andromeda started attending school at Hogwarts– something about Dark Magic and how he oddly refused to talk about the principle of soul splitting. Something about how it was a deeply personal topic to him.

Nonetheless, the topic at hand wasn't about either Dark Magic _or_ soul splitting, so she thought that Slughorn was being a touch dramatic.

Still firmly grasped in his left fist, Slughorn clutched to the pink potion vial as if his life depended on it – white knuckles and all – but his friendly eyes had glazed over, completely checked out from the conversation that was taking place before him. Honestly, Narcissa was surprised he hadn't tried to interrupt again.

The thumb of his right hand rubbed circles over the smooth, brown cork that was wedged into the bottle's mouth. As students chattered in the background, the youngest Black sister was suddenly overcome with an undeniably pleasant sensation–

For the first few seconds, she was utterly fixated by the way her heart fluttered and how her senses were filled with the most pleasant scent she'd ever smelled.

And then it dawned on her: Professor Slughorn had absently uncorked the tiny vial of the love potion whilst his attention was still solely dedicated to a random knot in the wood floor– like he was in some sort of strange, dissociative fugue state.

Initially, what she smelled in the Amortentia didn't surprise her as soon as she identified that that really _was_ what she'd been smelling. The top notes were familiar– the scent of bergamot, which was warm and inviting. Just below the surface of the bergamot was cedar, which was masculine and somehow... sexy, but not overbearing? But then–

"So what happens if you drink the potion on a night that isn't a new moon? What about a full moon?" The question came from a feminine sounding voice from the back of the class, but Narcissa couldn't identify who it belonged to. Her focus was glued on the pink vial in the Professor's hands.

The base notes of the potion, however, weren't what she had expected. She had the mind to hold out for traces of white tea, but they were long gone.

Instead, the scents that clung to her the strongest were heady and intoxicating. Not like smoke or liquor or any other indulgent sin that left her feeling this buzzy– although it would have been easy to dismiss it as such if she hadn't been so intimately familiar with the scent and the way it permeated the periphery of her childhood memories.

It was, undeniably, the scent of Dark Magic.

Her attention suddenly snapped back to her classmate's question when she realized that Slughorn had stoppered the bottle.

It was an inquiry that she didn't have to think about long, because in the same pages of her ancestral potions book, this particular ritual was listed right before the recipe for the Reversal Potion. It had all the same steps, except it was just as her classmate had suggested– _this_ particular ritual was intended for a bright, full moon.

The answer came easy to her when her entire body felt like it was being caressed by the large, pale hands of a familiar lover, but when she parted her lips to answer, a voice ghosted across her left shoulder, answering the question for her.

"It forms an Irreversible Soul Bond."


	12. XII

If it had been up to Narcissa, the Malfoy family tree would have ceased to produce future branches that morning; she swears that she would have hexed his bollocks straight from between his legs if it hadn't been for the presence of their professor and classmates.

 _"An Irreversible Soul Bond,"_ she muttered to herself, mimicking his smooth tenor voice whilst making a caricature of the way he _just so casually_ traipsed into the classroom as if he hadn't been missing for an entire week without any explanation at all.

Narcissa had been sitting in front of the fireplace in the Slytherin Common Room with Juniper - the never ending chatterbox - in an attempt to distract herself from the return of the only man on earth whom she wished to smack dizzy and also shag senseless. Perhaps the two urges weren't mutually exclusive, but she _had_ been in the middle of figuring out which one she wanted to do first when her mulling came to a screeching halt.

She supposed she shouldn't have been surprised to see Lucius come into the common room, seeing as he had every right to be there, but it was a location that he seemed to only visit out of duty, like when a house meeting had to be called to order. However, he marched straight past Narcissa and Juniper and instead made a beeline to a small bookshelf at the back of the room.

At the time, Juniper was talking about how heinous it was for one of the dress shops in Hogsmeade to still offer magenta colored robes in the dead of Winter, but Narcissa couldn't help but focus all of her willpower on not turning to see what Lucius was up to. Whatever it was, he wasn't fooling anyone– the bookshelf that he was standing at mostly held old yearbooks, lost and found, and maybe a dozen older editions of potions textbooks. None of which would be useful to him in any way... unless to serve as a distraction to simply make himself look busy.

Mid-sentence, Narcissa reached to gently touch Juniper's knee which instantly silenced her. Turning to look at Narcissa with wide eyes from the unexpected gesture, she asked, "is everything alright, Cissy?"

While they were chatting, both girls had been leaning into the back cushion of the sofa while facing each other with their legs tucked neatly to their sides, but when Narcissa pulled her hand back, she was quick to unfold and rise to standing before rolling forward onto the balls of her feet and stretching her legs. "Just fine, June," she was chipper in her reply. "I think I may step outside for just a moment, if that's alright with you."

But she hadn't waited to see if Juniper gave her permission or not. Instead, the only sound that filled her ears were the hollow clicks of her heels against the stone flooring of the dungeons followed by the bassy echoes of her steps through the first floor corridor, and finally, the rhythmic crunching of the dead, winter grass below her when she strode out past the courtyard and onto the rolling hills between the castle and the Black Lake.

Where she ended up was the only place that was sacred to her on the school grounds: the hidden clearing past the Forbidden Forest that opened up to a private bank in front of the lake. She thought to herself how this night had been similar to the one she spent with Lucius the night of the ball and she chastised herself for it. The very reason she was _here_ right now was to escape him and how annoyed she was with him.

Because, truly, how dare he? How dare he flirt with her, kiss her, and then _insist_ that she have perfectly aligned morals and virtues that should keep her away from him? And only to disappear for a week without a word to then return to class with such nonchalance that it nearly made her head spin! She cursed herself for not cursing him when she had the chance, and part of her wishes she'd done more than smack him all those days ago.

Sitting alone in her private nook of the universe, Narcissa didn't feel the need to adhere to the ' _proper_ ' social codes that plagued her subconscious. Instead, she threw caution to the wintery wind as she splayed out on the grass, doing what she'd always done when she came here: she stared at the sky and looked to whatever ancient, planetary deity that would give her guidance.

When her icy blue eyes met the sky, she sighed with discontentment, not only because the stars were covered by a blanket of clouds, but because she didn't know where to go from here. She frequently sought the solace of her own company; although her baseline was being domestic and thriving in the company of her family and a select group of friends that might as well have been family-adjacent, she often felt her spark depleting after particularly trying times. And now, for the first time in her life, she was entirely separated from her family. Her blood.

And she couldn't think of anywhere else to go or anything else to do.

So rather than troubling herself with helping people who couldn't – or _wouldn't –_ be helped, she narrowed her gaze and sought refuge beyond the clouds, imagining her depleted emotions becoming recharged by the light of the moon: her oldest friend that she could tell her secrets and worries to without fear of judgment.

At it's core, this was something she could do to occupy her mind while she subconsciously organized and filed away any nasty lingering feelings and fears. _'It does no good to worry,'_ the sisters' governess used to tell them, _'worrying is for mudbloods and mongrels, neither of_ _which_ _are applicable to any of you three.'_

In the middle of her organization, a break in the dense blanket of clouds offered her a peek at something concerning: the star that acted as the right shoulder of the constellation Orion, which also happened to be Bellatrix's namesake, appeared to be flickering. Not an aggressive flicker like a candle burned to it's base, or like a lamp that was running out of oil– but something less active. Something much more subtle and... insidious, even.

Such was the life of a celestial body; stars were doomed to spend a lifetime burning hot and bright for only a handful of people to notice their beauty. Few would be lucky enough to spend their final moments as a dancing, flickering light show that suddenly turned into a powerful and luminous supernova... but most would fizzle out and turn into a black hole that sucked away any mass that came within any significant perimeter of it's very existence.

 _Funny,_ she thought to herself ironically, _funny how humans are not at all dissimilar to stars._ At a distance, they all seemed beautiful and dazzling, and some even appeared to be tightly knit among a group of friends and familiars that one could perceive as akin to a constellation. But the closer you approached them, you could see that most were fiery and unstable, leaving only havoc in their wake– and the ones who seemed as though they kept a small, private inner circle couldn't possibly be any more separated. It would make you wonder how they seemed to appear so close in the first place.

It was a sad, isolating reality.

And yet, there she lays, inwardly lamenting about her qualms with solitude as if she wasn't the one who had actually chosen it for herself that evening. Juniper Parkinson certainly wasn't the poster child of intelligent conversation; despite being as pure blooded as Narcissa and her sisters, Juniper was like a mutt– always happy to give and receive whatever attention anyone was willing to spare her, even if it was a boring, one-sided conversation on a sofa in the middle of the night. To stay would have been the safe, obvious choice for most people.

She took a deep breath and tucked away one final thought that ran amok about her sister before sitting up straight, and as she focused her attention back to her surroundings, she heard the crunching of dead grass below a dragonskin shoe. She didn't turn to face the sound.

"How did I know I'd find you here?" He wondered aloud, a playful and yet soothing air to his voice.

She rolled her eyes, not making any effort to get up to her feet. She wasn't exactly surprised to see that he'd joined her, she just wasn't anticipating him being so bold.

"Well, Lucius," she intoned, "it's one of two options, really." She waited to see if he had anything to remark. He didn't. "Option one is that we've been here together before, and I explicitly told you that this was a nice, quiet, private place I like to disappear to."

"Option two?" He queried, the sound in his voice identical to the one he employed when he was raising his brow to something with curiosity.

"Option two," she repeated him, rolling her eyes, "is that you literally followed behind me after I did nothing to deter you from doing so."

She heard the smirk cross his lips. "I'm assuming this means you _wanted_ me to follow you?"

Narcissa scoffed. "I'm assuming you know better than to ask a lady a question like that," she sliced through his flirtation like a knife through butter, her gaze still unbroken from the horizon in the distance. "But not to worry, I'll forgive your lapse in judgment for now."

She heard the crunching of footfalls again which echoed in her freshly-occluded mind. It hadn't occurred to her that he was coming to join her in sitting in the grass until she saw him out of her peripheral vision and immediately began resisting the urge to turn and face him.

"I thank you for your kindness, Miss Black. Let me know if there's ever a way I could repay my debt to you for such generosity," he teased, sarcastic in tone and yet still wearing that playful smirk. 

"It's Narcissa. Not Miss Black," she corrected him.

"It seems I owe you an apology now, too. I suppose I should start a list of sins that need atonement."

She exhaled a breathy laugh through her nose which caught her by surprise. She hadn't expected to laugh during a week as hellish as this one had been, and she expected even less that it would occur in the company of the boy that had left without a word and effectively ignored her ever since he came back.

"Well I suppose it's only logical that I started you a tab, _Mister Malfoy,_ " she retorted with a hint of venom on her tongue. In her peripheral vision, she saw Lucius with his arms crossed against his chest, looking every bit as angelic as he had when they came to this clearing for the first time together after the All Hallow's Eve Ball. Whenever a few moments passed and he hadn't yet produced any further banter, she decided to go straight for what she wanted to know:

"Where have you been?" It was posed casually, as if she was asking him what he had for lunch. Mundane, even– had it not been for the weight of the answer.

He made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a choked gasp, but because she refused to turn her head and look at him, she wasn't sure if it was from amusement or disbelief. She was, however, willing to bet on the latter. It sounded as though he'd been told a joke and then immediately punched in the chest afterward, and while her nurturing side held it's concerns, the part of her that was currently annoyed by every single long, blond strand of hair on his head hoped that the gasp hurt just as bad emotionally as it sounded physically.

The small family of Cornish Pixies that had begun fluttering in her stomach when he initially sat next to her disappeared, and the banter back and forth came to a screeching halt. Being with him, next to him, was such a strange feeling; it was like she felt a chill tightening in her stomach, or a fire lighting up her chest. But the thing about fires is that they weren't meant to last for eternity– which is quite possibly what kept her from wanting to dive head first into his arms.

There were entire continents that thrived and supported whole ecosystems in cold, arctic tundras. But fire? Fire only destroyed, and flames never lasted forever.

"London," he declared matter-of-factly, only pausing to dart his tongue across his lower lip before continuing. "I saw your sister this morning," he added, and the uninterrupted air of nonchalance had Narcissa gasping for a breath in the same way Lucius had been moments before.

She covered the sound with a cough before he caught on. "My sister? She said she was heading to-"

"The Ministry proposal by _You-Know-Who_."

Narcissa felt her eyebrows involuntarily knitting together as her neck hinged and she turned to face him. She was met with the near-identical vision that she'd seen of him on the night of the dance; unblemished pale skin, long and shiny platinum hair, and shadows that cast over his face that further defined the contours which already existed. The nervous blanche of his expression when he saw her looking at him, _really looking at him,_ acted as a domino effect for the familiar heat pooling in her stomach– one that was ever present when she was around him.

As with the nature of constellations, such was the same with heat and fire and flames. A flame could only be contained for a short period of time before all of the oxygen was consumed and left the inferno reduced to embers with no other option than to fizzle out.

The blonde took another deep breath. "Did she tell you about him? Wasn't his name... Riddle-something–"

Lucius interrupted her with a voiceless chuckle at the sound of her wondering aloud. "Yes, something like that."

The conversation was rapidly reducing itself to a game of cat and mouse, where she felt the need to keep pressing questions to him – none of the fun kind – and while she wanted to find out as much as she possibly could about the whereabouts of her sister, she figured it wouldn't hurt to lean in on Lucius a bit to see what other information he was willing to volunteer.

"Was she with anyone?" Narcissa asked, mindful to make as many mental notes about the situation as possible. She didn't want to have the incorrect information about her sister's foggy future, so she opted to file it away rather quickly.

Lucius gave a solemn nod, his pointy chin angling in the direction of the lake ahead. "Yes, Rodolphus Lestrange."

Narcissa really tried to feign ignorance. Really, she did. "That's who our parents negotiated her marriage with." But she knew that based off of his coy expression, she wasn't getting away with it. But how could she say she was surprised? Her sister's betrothment had become the hot gossip of the school for weeks. She didn't want to think that the man marrying her was capable of kidnapping. Besides, Bella had spoken endlessly about this meeting.

The pronunciation in his voice rapidly shifted from genial, to dry and melancholic. "She looked very happy."

Another silent pause between the two of them threatened to form, but Lucius had ultimately decided that he didn't want to suffer that fate more times in a single night than he absolutely had to. Narcissa had additionally noted that he wasn't a fan of silences and lapses in conversation. It felt as if they were dancing around important subjects, walking toward a ledge, but too scared to dive off– or perhaps daring the other to jump first.

"Any developments in your own arrangements?" He asked, trying to keep his voice level and his tone neutral throughout the question. He turned his head to watch her as she formed her response, and she could have sworn she saw him fighting a smirk.

Rolling her eyes and then training them back onto the lake, she deadpanned her reply, "Thomas said that he's written an offer and proposal to my father. According to him, as you told me, the tale seems to be that my father accepted the offer."

"I see," he replied, his voice low enough in volume that she suspected that she may not have been intended to hear it. "Honestly, Nott never struck me as the type. The type for romantic committments, I mean. He's most likely after your inheritance, you know."

She scoffed again, crossing her arms against her chest and biting back a humorless laugh at the second coming of her realization of the obvious. "I'd be _more_ shocked to find out that either of your statements _weren't_ true."

She caught him in the middle of a casual shrug in her peripheral vision.

"Are you happy?" He asked after another pensive silence.

"Happy?" She repeated, almost choking on the word – the concept – that, in the breadth of a single week, became foreign.

He nodded, not providing any further explanation. He almost looked solemn now; his eyes were blank of the mischievous sparkle they typically held, and even his passive, resting expression usually had the corners of his mouth upturned slightly, which were now noticeably absent as well. But what he presently lacked without the impish gleam in his eye was more than reconciled by the warmth in his demeanor.

Warmth.

For a brief space of time, she thought to herself that perhaps not all fires were bad.

"I suppose I should be," her shoulders barely moved– hardly a shrug as her eyes bore into the strong angle of his jaw, almost willing for him to look at her. "I'm under the impression that most girls would be incredibly flattered by a man willing to pay large sums of money to marry them."

"I asked if you were happy, Narcissa. Not how you thought you were supposed to feel."

An exasperated sigh escaped from between her lips and she leaned back against the heels of her palms. "You should know just as well as I do that as pure bloods, we're supposed to suppress what we _want_ and focus on what's expected of us."

Lucius did not interject. It was the first silence that was his own doing since their conversation began.

"To answer your question honestly, no. I'm not happy," Narcissa finally choked out the truth– and after holding it in for so long, it felt _good_ to release it– like untying an anchor that she didn't realize she had attached to her; one that kept her bogged down and unable to move onto milder tides.

When Narcissa's eyes darted to the side to sneak another peek at the Prefect, she could have sworn she saw a twitch at the corner of his lips, and her next breath caught in her throat when he leaned back just like she had, his fingertips brushing against hers and settling into the touch. Neither of them pulled away.

"What would make a powerful and intelligent witch like yourself happy?" He asked.

Narcissa fought a laugh at the question. The words by themselves seemed almost sarcastic and disingenuous, but she knew his kind nature and heard the softness in his voice. "Lets see," she thought aloud, "powerful, intelligent, and what else?" She asked coyly, trying to further lighten the mood, but nearly avoiding the question altogether.

She watched him in some state that fringed between _awe_ and _utter disbelief_ as he fully allowed his otherwise stoic mask to fall. It was a side to him that she knew few had seen before– at least not publicly.

"Everyone knows you're devastatingly beautiful, Cissa. That goes without saying." The abrupt, blunt intention of his voice caught her by surprise.

Initially, she staved off a smile, but the nickname only served as a reminder of a previous conversation between herself and another boy who gave her a similar nickname; except, it was one that made her skin crawl at the mere thought of it.

Narcissa shifted her weight, crossing her legs at the ankle as they both remained leaning back, hands still touching. "Nott told me about a rather peculiar conversation that the two of you had recently," she led nervously.

"Oh?" He replied. Simple, as if it was the most casual topic in the world.

She nodded. "He said you both talked about whether or not you thought I would like tattoos."

He was unabashed in unleashing a bright grin, rolling his eyes slightly in the process. He pulled his hand away from hers, and she fretted at the loss of the heat of his skin against hers. Warmth. And it felt like such a silly thing for her to notice, considering the circumstances of the current exchange between them.

He leaned forward, pulling his knees up closer to himself. After shrugging off his jacket, his fingers nimbly unlooped the buttons on the left cuff of his white uniform shirt, where he promptly rolled the sleeve up to his elbow and revealed a midnight-hued tattoo of a skull eating a snake that was coiled into an infinity symbol. The design sat atop red, angry looking skin, and she felt herself suck air in through her teeth almost reflexively.

The lines of his smile softened when he saw her look of empathy. With his right hand, he leaned in and reached for her left arm, leading her to touch him. Narcissa inhaled again at the insurmountable _heat_ that was radiating from such a small patch of his otherwise smooth, snowy skin.

"It's a symbol to represent the future," he started, his eyes locked onto hers, assessing her as she continued peering down at the skull and serpent. "It's what he talked about at the Ministry meeting. How to save our kind. Like you and I."

Her gaze flitted back up to meet his, and she could have nearly melted from the stare he gave her; his eyes were like silver pools that promised refuge from the conflagration between themselves. He looked back down at his arm, bringing her to follow.

"He called it a Dark Mark," he gave a lopsided smirk. At some point, he'd released her hand, but she had yet to tear it away from his arm. "It acts as a calling card for our missions. You see, they're bound with blood magic and _we_ – all the others that bear the Mark – we'll all come together in times of need."

"Need?" Narcissa parroted back with a whisper, her thumb still grazing the raised lines beneath his skin. By now, the touch was more subconscious than anything else– as if touching him was just as passive and as natural as breathing or blinking. Normally, she would have felt embarrassed by a notion of such codependency, but with him it felt normal. Needed, even.

"The Muggle-borns," he replied plainly, also showing no objection to the intimacy of the touch. "Mudbloods. They're the biggest threat to our heritage and our world. _You-know-who_ wants to protect us. He wants to preserve the sanctity of our kind."

Narcissa supposed that she wasn't so shocked by the idea of her sister participating in such an initiative; she'd nearly spearheaded the initial onslaught of disgust when Andromeda broke the news of her relationship to their family. So, in a way, she felt relieved that Lucius wasn't also some sort of new-wave defector of pure-blooded beliefs.

He took pause at her silence, possibly worried by her lack of any sort of ardent reaction. "Are you alright?" He finally asked, cautiously, after allowing a few seconds of silence to pass in order for her to collect her thoughts.

"Of course," she replied just as plainly as he'd begun, "it's not exactly a secret that the Malfoy family believes in blood purity. Although I am surprised," she admitted after letting go of a small chuckle. "A bit relieved, mostly."

A blond eyebrow quirked up at her admission, and finally, the familiar sparkle of mischief returned to his sterling gaze.

She began to elaborate further, "seems like every pure blood in this school is starting to mix with the mudbloods–"

For the first time since letting go, he reached for her hand which was still against his wrist and laced his fingers in hers. "And I take it your family also practices the same beliefs?" He wondered aloud. It very well could have been a rhetorical question, seeing as – _much like the Malfoys –_ the Blacks also had a long-standing history of upholding their ideals of blood purity. Their disowning of their own blood for becoming a blood traitor was extremely public and didn't catch the ire of any other fellow pure-blooded families, either.

She laughed. A genuine, full laugh that originated deep from within her chest. "Was it us disowning our sister for marrying a mudblood, or was it the arranged, advantageous pure blood marriages that gave it away?" She shot back with a biting, yet flirtatious sarcasm. It was reminiscent of their back-and-forth banter that they'd gotten into the habit of exchanging in Potions class.

After a moment of cleansing laughter between the two of them, it was as if the last week hadn't happened at all– like they'd been with each other the whole time; after a lull in their carefree exchange, she leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder as she looked back up to the skies, silently wishing to thank the deity that was responsible for sending him there that night.

"Would you ever consider taking the Mark like your sister?" He wondered with a low volume, his voice like velvet against her ear.

Narcissa glanced down at his Mark, still exposed and radiating heat. Her response was concise: "I don't feel the need to be physically marked as a reminder of what I believe in."

Lucius' face gave away his immediate sense of regret in regard to asking the question in the first place. After his brows knit together, obviously thinking of the best way to save the conversation, Narcissa took the opportunity to turn and look at him.

She wondered if his lips would still set her alight in the way they did only a week ago. She thought that it had been one week too long.

"Can I ask you something?" She inquired, her calm, feminine voice floating within the range of a breathy whisper. She found herself leaning in closer to him.

He inhaled when he noticed her closing proximity, reveling in the scent of her perfume. "Anything," he breathed back, carefully watching her encourage the scarcity of space between them.

She pulled her hand free of his hold and traced her fingertips back to his left forearm. Her manicured nail brushed the raised lines, and she marveled at the lubricious display of his tongue swiping against his teeth before he bit down on it in order to pacify whatever his next words would have been, in anticipation for what she was on the cusp of asking.

"Does it hurt?" Her hand flattened, her palm pressed against the expanse of the skull.

He shook his head while hungrily staring at her lips, completely entranced by the small exhales that passed through them, only visible from the rapidly falling temperature.

Narcissa pulled her hand from his arm and brought it to the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer to herself whilst their eyes consumed one another.

"Are you okay?" She breathed again, and the question was met with another slight nod.

She closed the distance between their lips.

It was in that moment that nothing else mattered in the world. Everything else seemed so small that it was practically non-existent. Every worry had been unnecessary. Every troubling thought surrounding her sisters, her family, Thomas, school, friendships... even the need to come up for air seemed _entirely_ unnecessary in comparison for the irrefutable _need_ she felt to kiss him.

His eyes, his lips, his hands, his entire existence consumed her. Set her whole being into combustion.

When she pulled him ever closer by the shirt collar, his hands fell to grip her hips, pulling her forward to straddle his lap in a swift movement that felt nearly second nature to the both of them. Their tongues met again in a blazing passion, and her whimpers of deep longing were immediately chased by his equally desirable exhales.

With his thumbs firmly pressed against her hip bones through the fabric of her skirt, holding her in place against the growing heat between their hips, she reached up and started unbuttoning her shirt. Lucius' lips fell to the corner of her mouth and trailed a path of desperate kisses and nibbles from her jaw, down the column of her throat, and across her collarbone before finally settling into the junction of her neck and shoulder.

She mourned the loss of his lips against hers, but she deliciously shuddered at the sensation of his teeth scraping against the delicate skin of her neck. She leaned into the bites, whimpering louder for him as encouragement to continue. Goosebumps instantly shot across her neck, shoulders, and exposed cleavage when his tongue laved across a soft spot below her ear, his palms having traveled from her hips toward the small of her back. He pressed her against himself, causing her hips to tilt and create a slight, yet lascivious friction where they needed it most.

Another shudder erupted from her spine and he pulled her closer still.

"Are you cold?" He whispered against her lips as he cradled her face in his hands.

She nodded. "I can think of a few places we could go to warm up," she volunteered with a cheeky grin, her eyes still closed as she focused on his breath, his warmth devouring her.

She felt him smile against her lips. "At the risk of sounding indecent–"

She rolled her hips against him again, eliciting a low moan to interrupt his proposal of a location change. He laced his fingers in her hair to pull her ear to meet his lips, "being a Prefect, I do have special access to a certain place that just might do the trick in warming you up."

Narcissa pulled away and pressed her forehead to his, peering down at him through lidded, crystalline eyes. "Is that so?" She smirked. "Suddenly I'm in great need of a bath."

Lucius cradled her face again, gently pulling her down for another kiss. When he caught another breath, he smiled, "that's precisely what I had in mind. Not feeling dirty, are you?"

She leaned back down again, "absolutely filthy," she replied before using her tongue to part his lips, and moaning into his mouth while she pressed her chest to his, their hearts thrumming in sync with one another. 


	13. XIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The following chapter contains an NSFW illustration by @Dralamy. You can find more of their work on Instagram, Tumblr, and Pillowfort.
> 
> DO NOT REPOST.

Their journey back to the confines of the school began at the edge of the Black Lake, through the halls of the castle, and finally reaching the entrance to the Prefects' Bathroom had veritably been an elaborate game of dodging other students and avoiding the teachers that still patrolled the halls. Normally, it would have been easy for Lucius to play the role of a responsible Prefect that was simply accompanying a student back to her common room, but it was hard to maintain the platonic façade when they could hardly keep their hands off of each other.

Whenever they turned the corner into a hallway that was free of any other occupants, they took turns leading hand-in-hand and pulling the other behind them. Both of their bodies tightened like a coil from anticipation each time they reached a new corridor, excitedly holding their breath while Lucius peeked around the corner to see if they were alone.

Even when they'd run into the issue of having to navigate past other occupants, they'd taken numerous opportunities to duck into an alcove hidden by a tapestry or an abandoned classroom to feverishly snog whilst waiting for whomever it was outside to move past. Still, she was grateful for the chance to rake her fingers though his hair and taste his lips with reckless abandon.

As the flat of his palms and splayed fingers traveled down her spine, pulling her body flush against his, he leaned against the wall of a hidden recess in the stone and pressed an aching groan against the soft skin below her ear. His intoxicating hum that ghosted past her ear served only as encouragement for her to continue to seek the buttons of his trousers.

He let out an exhale, his cock already throbbing in anticipation of the agonizing salvation she so desperately wanted to deliver to him, but he reluctantly captured her hands in his, leading them back up to his shoulders.

"Not yet, love," he whispered, his mouth hovering over the newly-formed purple bite at the crook of her neck. "Not here," he said in one final breath of reassurance that told her that they were drawing nearer to the promise of sated indulgence.

His palms slithered down the contour of her spine and past the curve of her arse, where he leaned into her searing lips, now able to reach forward further where his fingers found the hem of her skirt. His wrists caught the grey twill, dragging it up with his hands that were now lingering possessively against the backs of her thighs.

His commanding, yet featherlight touches never ceased to enchant her, and she wondered how the simple, warm caress of his tongue against hers could make her melt so completely.

The sound of footfalls steadily disappeared past the tapestry that they'd been hiding behind, but it was nearly impossible for them to tear themselves away. Each new kiss, each new touch, each new whisper that tumbled from their lips only made it harder for them to sever the contact of skin against skin, as if it was a lifeline that tethered them to this reality.

" _Fuck_ ," he gasped into her open mouth, cursing at the loss of contact as he came up for air with both of their chests rapidly, shallowly rising and falling.

Between the tantalizing filth that sailed past her ear and his rigid erection that was pinned against her stomach, she cared not for any tether to reality when they could just as easily ascend to the stars together.

"Take me, Lucius," she whispered lowly into the junction of his neck and shoulder, laving her flat tongue up the expanse of firm muscle that contracted and rippled beneath her touch. His head tilted back against the flagstone, and another tortured groan erupted from his throat that reverberated through her spine.

She reached up to cover his mouth with her hand and rocked forward toward the balls of her feet to whisper the threat into his ear, "if you don't fuck me _right now,_ " she rolled her hips against his pulsing arousal, "then you'll leave me no choice but to _Incarcerus_ you and bring you to the brink of orgasm before leaving you here, bound and frustrated."

Narcissa felt his lips curl into a smirk below her palm, and before she was able to ask him what he found so funny, his left hand circled the wrist of hers that covered his mouth and he pulled it down, securely against his throat. With his right, he sought purchase at the nape of her neck and pulled her forward, their lips crashing together again. The pull that he had on her met with the push that she had against him and it created an incinerating pressure between their bodies that threatened to make them explode.

She tightened her grip, her fingertips pressing against the sides of his throat, and she felt him start to smirk again whilst breathlessly meeting her frantic, hungry kisses with his own. When she released him, he pushed off from the wall that he'd been leaning against and pinned her to the opposite side. His arms caged her in as his steely eyes bore down into hers, and the second she began to work at the buttons on her blouse again, he recaptured her wrists and pushed the tapestry that had been hiding them aside.

With the gust of wind that the heavy, rough fabric of the tapestry produced, Lucius threw caution to the wind as well; he pulled her in his wake, not revealing any signals of caring if they got caught. Rather than holding back behind each new corner they approached, he instead chose to barrel right past them, making a beeline for the door of the Prefects' bathroom.

He raised his wand and began to mutter the password, but even in the duration of less than ten seconds, the absence of his touch became too much for Narcissa to bear.  
Again, she tugged at his shirt collar and pulled him against herself, indulging in another barrage of kisses and bites and swipes of their tongues that felt sinful and worshipping all at once.

With his body crushing hers against the oak door, they'd nearly fallen to the ground when the lock clicked and the door swung on it's hinges to open after Lucius had successfully waved his wand in the correct pattern - a miracle in itself, considering that he never utilized the Prefects' bathroom enough to master the movement without watching himself doing it - never mind the fact that he was completely and totally distracted by the witch who was currently making her conquest of him into her life's mission.

The moment he felt their bodies about to lose balance and tumble to the floor, Lucius reached for her shoulders and swung her around, pushing her against a marble column by the entryway. She shivered at the contact of the cold marble, despite still being fully clothed by her school uniform.

She wanted nothing more than to reach for his wrists again, to guide them back to her tits or her arse, but before she had the opportunity to grab for them, his knee had shoved between her legs, forcing them open as her skirt rose like a curtain against her thighs. When he leaned down to kiss her again, she closed her eyes and listened to the symphony of their thrumming heartbeats and frantic breathing patterns. She focused on the feeling of his fingers snaking through her hair and tilting her head to expose the side of her neck that hadn't yet been patched with love bites.

A moan erupted from her lips when he gave the fistful of her hair a gentle tug, and in the same moment, she felt two warm, familiar fingertips lightly brushing the pale blue lace of her knickers. She was nearly putty in his hands; as his bites against the junction of her neck and shoulder sent jolts of pleasure between her thighs - as if his hands were acting as the electrical conductors - her legs started to shake.

He retreated from the bruising nibbles at her throat to only return to her lips; his heady kisses were veritably deepening, stealing any remaining shred of sense inside her.

She began working the buttons of his shirt, making a short task of them while her eyes were shut and her tongue was occupied. After successfully tearing away his house tie and parting every button that cruelly separated them, she peeled the poplin material from his shoulders- which halted at his elbows from where he had her pinned against the wall.

Her fingertips circled back to the width of his shoulders; alabaster and glowing from the multicolored rays of light that danced across every surface of the room from the way the moonlight was gleaming through the stained glass windows. She paused for a moment to admire the sheer perfection of his skin, basking in the delineation of his muscles and fantasizing about how she'd willingly take the Mark if it meant that she had the chance to drink wine from the subtle dips in his collarbones.

Narcissa was dragged from her thoughts to feeling the gusset of her knickers being yanked aside, and a wanton gasp tore through her throat. Brash and unexpected, she felt as if the oxygen had been stolen from her lungs, breaking their kiss. She shivered at the lubricious warmth that surrounded her center, and when he tentatively slid two digits through the slick that coated the perimeter of her entrance, her shoulders and spine involuntarily slouched in an attempt to sink into his hold and fulfill her yearning.

He held her with a need that felt as deep as his soul; he touched her with a hunger that stood no chance of being satiated- and despite the lascivious way he pressed his palm against her clit, absorbed by the symphony of her whimpers keeping in time with each thrust of his fingers, Lucius couldn't help but become lost in her eyes. He wanted to drown in the pools of blue, and he wouldn't refuse to allow her to become the anchor that sunk him beneath the undertow.

Just as soon Lucius' ministrations began, it seemed like they stopped equally as abrupt; he withdrew his fingers and reached for his wand, casting a charm over his shoulder that turned on the faucets of the bath before he removed his shirt, shucked off his shoes, and sunk to his knees in front of her.

Physical emptiness had suddenly become a sensation that overtook her, and every last nerve ending in her body was crying for his touch, to be filled and to feel whole again.

And yet, through the hazy and carnal instincts overtaking her, it was as if she had an epiphany- like a new dawn cresting over the horizon and shedding light onto each painstakingly occluded synapse in her brain. It was a feeling that she had no hope of accurately describing until that very moment; the physical emptiness was the exchange for the emotional vacancy that she had long since stowed in the back of her mind. She'd unknowingly been shielding herself from every insidious sentiment that accompanied the hollow dullness of an otherwise enviable existence.

She was better than the loneliness that fate had assigned her in the last week, and she was above the romantic neglect that Thomas saw fit to bestow upon her. More than anything, she questioned why any of it had mattered up until this point- why had she resigned herself to endure such needless turmoil when a man who saw her as a celestial goddess and crowned her as his Empress knelt before her?

Feeling a pair of silvery, lust-drunk eyes staring up at her, she peered down at him to see his cheek resting against her thigh and she watched as his hands teased their return beneath her skirt. "Do you have any idea how gorgeous you look right now?" His voice was low and gravelly posing the question.

"Don't stop," she pleaded with a whisper.

She was the center of his proverbial universe; her divinity had its own gravitational pull, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to pillage the unknown territory and lay his claim, or erect an altar and worship at her feet.

Lucius held the back of her left knee, pulling it up from the floor as he slid the shoe from her foot and discarded it behind her. After, his thumb hooked into the top of the knee-high sock and just as adeptly peeled it off. The shoe and sock of her right leg met the same fate, but this time he paused with her knee cupped in his hand; he hovered his lips against her shin, parting them slightly before ghosting them across her skin and up toward her knee.  
With his left hand falling to caress her calf, he brought his right hand forward to support her heel.

Tenderly guiding her legs to part, he brought his lips to press against the bend of her knee before allowing his tongue to dart out and taste her skin. As a trail of goosebumps cast across her thigh, he nibbled at the sensitive flesh and left a tender bruise in his wake.

He breathed against her skin with a lascivious rumble. "Oh, darling, I'm only getting started,"

In a swift movement that was damn-near imperceptible to the naked eye, he'd relieved her of her knickers and they pooled at her feet. With two fingers at the entrance of her cunt, she'd hardly had time to wonder if his divestment of her had employed any magic before she felt a hand snake around to cup her right cheek and use the momentum to thrust her hips forward, crashing her into the warm, sinful caress of his tongue.

This was unlike anything she'd ever done with Thomas, but sex was never excessively pleasurable for her, either. Nott had been a faithful subscriber to the antediluvian ways of believing that if the sex in question wasn't serving the purpose of a man's pleasure, then it was for reproduction; there had even been times he'd alluded to believing that the female orgasm was a myth.

The hand that had been gripping her arse like a vise released and traced down her long, lean legs before encircling her ankle and pulling her legs further apart. Narcissa's composure had long since left the room, and as she desperately chased after the apogee of her release, she complied.

A shiver dripped down her spine when his hand returned to her rear and leveraged her forward once more. The thrusts of Lucius' fingers halted and his mouth broke contact with her clit for a fraction of a second, and she nearly uttered a discontented cry from the loss- but before the objection could be verbalized, he tilted his chin to dive back between her legs from a lower vantage point.

He flattened his tongue and dove between her thighs without hesitation; a low, satisfied hum created a nearly undetectable vibration as he lapped the moisture seeping from her opening before languidly dragging a broad stroke that returned his lips to her front again, where without further preamble, he resumed the tactual savoring of her pleasure.

Narcissa tangled her fingers in his hair, and if it hadn't been for the way her head was tilted back against the marble column, she was certain she'd be met with the rare vision of a thoroughly disheveled Lucius Malfoy. And as if the firm grasp on her arse hadn't been enough, she pulled his hair that she'd threaded between her knuckles while using the heel of her palm to push his face even more firmly against her.

As a whole, all of it was a barrage of mind-bending, earth-shattering ecstacy which she was sure would be difficult to achieve again- but what his final move was that sent her over the edge was the way she felt his lips shift into a smirk against her clit as his fingers curled inside her.

Stars.

She saw stars and planets and constellations and deities that mankind hadn't even invented yet. Her entire existence throbbed and contracted with euphoria, and she felt like her whole body had been coated in oil and his tongue was the match that had set her alight.

Never had her boyfriend cupped her arse and directed her to open wider so he could drag his tongue over her cunt until her legs twitched before crying out in ecstacy. Never had she thought such heights of bliss were even possible.

When the toe-curling throbs ceased into gentle flutters, Lucius drew his hands away from her center to settle on her hips. He gently peppered kisses between each of her thighs before working outward as he rose to his feet, bringing his lips and tongue to meet her hips, stomach, sternum, and breasts whilst peeling away her poplin shirt and lace brassiere.

Ghosting his fingertips across her nipples, she returned the favor of his touch by reaching out and unbuttoning his trousers, causing them to fall to the floor in the same fashion that her knickers had. At some point or another, he'd managed to slip off his shirt without her noticing, and Narcissa deduced that it had to have been during her climax.

The contours of his chest and abdomen were almost remarkably pronounced, and her mind briefly floated away with the fantasy of giving one of the house elves a day off so that she could wash her delicate satins and silks against the rigid sinews.

"These need to come off," she teased, catching the waistband of his underwear with the nail of her forefinger.

His mercurial eyes glinted with want, but it was a look that she managed to only steal a moment of before he pushed her back against the wall and leaned into her ear. "Why on earth would I do that when I can do–" he fluidly dragged the zipper down it's track on her skirt; the tinny buzz of it's metal teeth parting was the only thing to pierce through their labored exhales. "–this?"

She smirked. Her fingers languidly raked through his hair before gathering his platinum locks between her fists and settling on the nape of his neck.

"Because I want to taste you before I fuck you," she returned the steamy whisper to his ear, eliciting an almost guttural groan from his throat which compromised his façade of composure.

"And once I'm done fucking you, I want to taste you again," she continued, pleased with his initial reaction. "I want to see how we taste together. How we complement each other."

When she felt his cock twitch against her stomach, her breathing hitched and she released the grasp that she had around his hair. Unable to resist the urge, she sunk her hands between their bodies and pulled down the waistband of his underwear, her blue eyes widening to the size of saucers in awe of him springing free of his cotton confines.

Narcissa was on the brink of boiling over with desire, her lungs aflame and her cunt quivered with craving anew. Following her more carnal instincts, her right hand firmly encircled him, holding still for a moment before they exchanged moans whilst she gave his length one swift pump.

Lucius immediately stilled her, grabbing her by the wrist and guiding her hand away. Before she could verbalize any protest, she felt his lips on hers, hungrily slipping his tongue through to brush hers. She lost herself in a moan, her mind completely occupied by the stimulation of her nipples pressed against his bare chest, his tongue in her mouth, and his cock restlessly pinned to her abdomen.

"And what if I want to watch you touch yourself?" He breathed into her mouth while she impatiently tilted her hips to render him insatiable from the friction. "Watch the way you'll play with your sweet cunt when you're up at night thinking of this?"

Their eyes bore into one another, daring each other to move first. The gentle heaving of their chests cast more goosebumps against her tits, which only caused her to further keen into him.

The contact of Lucius' smooth, pale skin was lost much too soon, nearly sending her into a frenzy of unquenchable desire. Just as she began to vocalize a whimper in protest, his fingertips were laced with hers and he was pulling her into the bath.

It was only when the steaming water licked at her skin when she realized just how blazing hot she'd gotten once they entered the bathroom. She felt as though she was teetering on the edge of combustion, but before she could linger on the thought for too long, she felt Lucius' large, strong hands gripping her waist and pulling her to lean against him.

Narcissa instinctually gave into the desire to grind her _sweet cunt –_ as he had so aptly described it – against his erection when her arse met his lap, but he immediately stilled her when his hands dipped from her waist to settle against the curve of her hips.

She leaned back against his chest and he hummed with contentment to once again meet her neck with his teeth; his eyes, however, did not close as he tasted her– drinking in the vision of the masses of white bubbles falling and popping against the peaks of her heaving tits and pale, rosy nipples.

" _Fuck–"_ she gasped, a near-perfect imitation of when Lucius had previously muttered the curse. "I want you to fuck me," she breathlessly pleaded for him to satiate the wildfire in her core.

When he captured her wrists in his hands, she craned her neck back against his shoulder to admire his profile and the way he smirked when he laced his hands with hers. "I want to watch you fuck yourself first."

He took charge of their conjoined hands, leading their left hands to grope her left breast; their right continued traveling down her stomach and below her hips before making it's final descent, buried between her thighs.

Narcissa shuddered as another bolt of lighting struck her spine and traveled, trembling through to her toes. She was nearly mindless from lust.

"You're a filthy fucking pervert, you know that?" She growled against his jawline as she began to guide their right hands in painstaking circles around her clit.

He chuckled at the accusation, reveling in the sensation of her taking the reins. "I'm willing to bet that's what makes us so perfect together." She had power in ways she didn't yet know, and he was graciously humbled by her divinity.

Eyes glassy, she smiled at his quick exchange of wit. Throwing caution to the wind, she led their joined fingers deeper between her thighs, and they both released a unanimous moan when she slid their middle fingers into the heat of her cunt. Overtaken by his want to lead her to orgasm again and again, Lucius freed his left hand from hers and immediately cast it down to circle her clit.

She continued to tease and pull her nipple with reckless abandon while they worked together to bring her back to the edge, and Lucius had to truly begin concentrating on the task at hand rather than give in to the relentless twitch of his painful erection. _"Merlin_ _–"_ she choked past a ragged gasp as her walls clenched around their fingers.

In an attempt to ground himself from coming to release before she did, he sunk his teeth into the smooth, sensitive skin of her scapula– but he couldn't stop himself from relishing the feeling of her fluttering climax against the intimacy of their joined digits. As she caught her breath and dissolved into his embrace, he brushed his tongue against the memory of his bite on her shoulder.

Once she settled and her breathing returned to a manageable rhythm, Narcissa didn't need any coaxing to turn around and face the man who'd twice executed a feat that her own boyfriend hadn't accomplished – or even bothered with – for the entirety of their relationship.

"Come here, gorgeous," he mumbled as he reached to cup her face and bring her in for a soft, needy kiss. He couldn't ignore the ache between his legs, but his Empress was decidedly more important. He trailed his touch from her face, slowly, slowly falling and embracing each curve, willing himself to commit her supple form to memory as he pulled her forward to straddle his lap. She returned to her familiar keen against the hard planes of his chest, and his desperate exhale chased her whimper when his tip teased her entrance.

With both of their bodies slick from the soapy water and bubbles, Narcissa grasped for his shoulders to steady herself on his lap. She absently admired the nonsensical patterns that his snowy hair had fallen into as it clung to his wet skin, pink from his rising blood pressure and the heat of the water. Once comfortably positioned, her gaze met his in one final ask of permission. He brushed his thumb against her lower lip and dreamily stared into her turquoise eyes, still glossy from need.

"What do you want?" He asked quietly, taking her hands in his and rubbing his thumbs over her knuckles.

"You," she replied.

He took the lead in guiding her hands again, but this time, he placed them against his throat – an unfamiliar hold that she'd taken when they kissed in the library – which he found that he enjoyed because of the pure, unbridled power and confidence that radiated through the perfection of her form when she held him that way.

"Then have me."

Still teasing their brushing arousal, she gasped when she tentatively lowered herself onto him, a short, shallow distance before rolling her hips and whimpering from the tingling fulfillment as she stretched to accommodate his size. Decidedly needing more support, she removed her right hand from his neck and leaned back against his knee; still, the left hand remained and she smirked at the vision of masculinity thoroughly enjoying such a touch.

She arched her back and tightened around him, breathing life into his very existence as she sunk down lower and lower, and once she'd finally bottomed out, they both nearly screamed from the fulfillment. After a few more wiggles of her hips to adjust, she rose back up to sheath him to the hilt again, followed by the delightfully agonizing sensation of her slowly pulling back again.

"You're so fucking perfect, Cissa," he whispered, gazing in awe at her expression of pleasure and feeling boastful that he was giving that to her. It was intoxicating.

Lucius couldn't resist leaning forward and capturing one of her nipples between his lips, hypnotized by the way they bounced with each thrust and how they rose and fell with every breath. Gently, slowly tracing their perimeter, he reveled in how she sighed and thought to himself that it was the sweetest song he'd ever heard.

His palms hugged the small of her back where her curves began to lend way toward the swell of her arse– not to control her or to force her rhythm; no, he knew she was the one who held the power in their dynamic– but to appreciate the form of the ethereal goddess that was before him, treating her body as an altar to which he would confess his most depraved sins and whisper his most solemn prayers.

Even in the low candlelight that engulfed their surroundings, she could still make out the half-moon divots carved by her teeth on the porcelain skin of his shoulders. Every so often, the light would catch on the peaks of the ripples in the water where the bubbles began to thin, and it would cast prismatic fractals against the walls and their intertwined bodies– nearly an electric light show if it hadn't paled in comparison to the magnitude of desire that reverberated in their bones. Each thrust was cosmic, cataclysmic, and brought them each one tilt of their hips closer to deliverance.

The soft and tight rush of her core was rapture, and every long, agonizing stroke from his thrusts were salvation.

With his eyes trained on her, silver like steel, he knew that he wasn't looking at a delicate, flickering ember that needed protecting from even the slightest breath. No– she was a raging wildfire that was unrelenting and unforgiving in her pursuit of pleasure. Her nails licked his skin like flames as they dug red paths down his shoulders and spine, and each breathy moan and trembling gasp only acted as fuel to further ignite her.

If she was fire, then any previous lover had been water: dousing her flames and drowning her intensity for fear of burning alive. But he... he was gasoline that proudly poured into her and encouraged her blazing inferno. They were not the antithesis of one another; they didn't take from each other or look to only serve themselves. Rather, they fed into each other, fanned one another's proverbial flames, and encouraged the other to engulf themselves into the blistering throes of combustion.

With each deep, rhythmic thrust inching closer and closer to a religious experience, the harmony of their whispers and sighs acting as their hymnal, they drew each other in and held each other close, their bodies firmly planted against one another as they fell of the ledge together, simultaneously falling into bliss and becoming entranced by the shooting stars that they saw in each other's eyes.

They cradled each other's faces, foreheads pressed together and wholly enveloped by one another as their bodies reluctantly regained a semblance of normalcy.

"My Empress," he mumbled, his voice near silence as he leaned in to kiss her again. Without a second thought, she kissed him back with just as much passion as before, never wanting this moment to end. The final minutes of the late night ticked into the early hours of a new day, both of them entirely withdrawn and disregarding the reality of time and the world surrounding them.

"Come back to my dorm with me," she whispered the command between kisses.

Without any hesitation, he lifted her from the bath and accompanied her through the halls and back to the Slytherin Dormitories. Nestled in the dungeons just below the Black Lake, Lucius and Narcissa spent the night holding one another, laughing at inside jokes, and whispering praise and promise into each other's ears before slowly drifting off to sleep together.

Narcissa's final passing thought before sleep claimed her was that she wondered if it was much too early to already be falling in love.


	14. XIV

"You _are_ aware that I could deduct house points and assign you detention for smoking on school grounds, are you not?" Lucius irritably muttered to his old friend, the breath from his words forming into thick, white clouds from the cold air.

Thomas Nott was perched up against the hand rails of the covered bridge, looking back at the castle as he took a long drag of the muggle cigarette. If his father would have seen him, he surely would've been shipped off to Durmstrang- or at least, that's what _would_ have happened back before he'd secured an engagement to a Black sister.

"You wouldn't," Nott smirked.

The icy air and overcast sky created a biting chill whenever the wind licked frigid whispers across their faces, and the lack of sunlight shining over the horizon made for everything within their line of sight adopt various hues of blue. It was only half five in the morning, so the sun was due to rise soon, but Lucius still looked up to the clouds. As he approached Nott, he paused just before he reached the wooden support beam that separated them and stuck his head out, braving the howling gusts and greeting the heavens with such a level of comfortability that one would assume he was familiar with all of the stars painted across the galaxy.

Anytime he found himself outside when it was dark, he'd always look up at the sky, fondly recalling the night he and Narcissa had first kissed. He was still curious about what her favorite constellation was, seeing as she never told him, but he couldn't bring himself to guess; it felt strange to think about such things when she wasn't with him. Still, even if wanted to take a guess, he couldn't. Not this time. He couldn't see anything up above tonight, not even the moon.

"Who would have known that _Lucius Malfoy_ would have been the one to break away from the group and start taking his little Prefect job seriously?" Thomas thought aloud, taking another lengthy drag after he'd laced his articulation with enough venom to satisfy himself. "Honestly, I'm surprised you came to the meeting this week."

Lucius felt a smirk threaten to wickedly crack his otherwise stoic composure, satisfied that his presence was unsettling enough for Nott to comment on it. "I'm surprised at your surprise," Lucius wanted to keep the exchange short and simple; the less time this took meant he had a higher chance of returning to Narcissa's dorm unnoticed- and yet he still couldn't help himself but to further vex his newly-appointed cohort: "but I'm sure I could say the same for you."

"Surprised at _me?"_ Thomas took offense to the haughty tone that Lucius assumed. Scoffing slightly, he pulled out all that remained of the cigarette from between his lips, examining the chewed, yellowing filter for only a fraction of a second before flicking it past the railing and watching it fall into the foggy abyss below. "Surely I needn't remind you of my father's direct involvement with the Knights of Walpurgis during his years here at Hogwarts?"

"And surely I needn't remind you of _my_ father's direct involvement with the dissolution of the mudblood Minister for Magic?" The Prefect raised an eyebrow and gave his old friend a knowing look.

Nott awkwardly shifted his weight from one foot to the next before reaching down in his pocket to pull out another smoke. "It seems our loyalties were both born from heritage, then." He ran his hands through his hair and leaned further against the wooden beam.

"Heritage or lineage?" Malfoy challenged Nott, which only earned him a blank stare in response. The thing about challenges was that they weren't exactly challenging if the other person was too dull to realize they were even being tested in the first place. "Never mind," he said with a laugh, using a dash of amusement to corral how astounded he felt by such stupidity.

"Speaking of lineage," Thomas cleared his throat. "I hope you're enjoying all the time you can get with my future wife, seeing as we'll be married at the end of term."

"Is that so?" The blond mused. He deliberately employed a casual tone that told Thomas that he thought every word that passed through his teeth was bullshit.

Nott returned with a smug nod, ignoring his old friend. "Although, I have to warn you, Malfoy, if I find out you've gotten into her knickers I'll have no choice but to use some sort of Unforgivable on you," he plainly threatened, adopting a casual voice of his own that one would use when they read off the quidditch scores from the _Prophet._

"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to disclose the status of a lady's virtue-"

"Who said anything about virtue, Luci?" Thomas smirked. "Please, I blasted the doors off her vault so hard it would've made a Gringotts goblin call for an auror." It had been an overly descriptive visual that Lucius was certain he could have gone his whole life without being subjected to it.

"Vile simile aside," Malfoy sneered, casting aside the urge to brag about his very recent romp with Nott's _'_ _future_ _wife,'_ "the general student body could have safely assumed _your_ status based solely on your reputation as a manwhore."

Nott laughed and looked down at the cigarette between his fingers, like he was deep in thought. "Entertaining as always, my old friend. Say– you reminded me of something that one of my halfblood Gryffindor flings used to tell me. A muggle phrase about _'assuming'_ things. Do you know which phrase I'm talking about, Malfoy?"

Raising a brow, Lucius met Thomas' coy expression with one of thinly-veiled disgust. "I'm afraid I can't say that I do, being that I'm not a blood traitor. It's one of the main reasons I joined the Dark Lord in the first place," he reminded Nott as he tapped the left sleeve of his robes. "I _do_ make a conscious effort to surround myself with only those worthy of my company, if I can help it. Speaking of which," he paused before pivoting on the balls of his feet and dismissing himself from the conversation. "I have to go."

He couldn't believe he'd gotten out of bed for this.

* * *

Narcissa awoke that morning to an empty bed.

Initially, her mood would have been fouled if it hadn't been for the cup of tea at her bedside table that had been charmed to stay warm, and strangely enough, it appeared to be prepared just the way she liked it. Alongside the dainty cup was a small note and a more official looking piece of mail that she recognized the penmanship which belonged to Bellatrix. As excited as she was for some correspondence from her sister, she was still disappointed at the lack of blond Prefect between her sheets with her. Part of her would have questioned if the last night had been a dream if it wasn't for the tender ache she felt, a dull throbbing in her pelvis.

She collapsed back into her pillows, staring up into the emerald canopy as if it held all of the answers to life's mysteries. After a few blinks that became dangerously slow, threatening to pull her back to sleep, she let out a loud exhale before reluctantly rising to her feet and immediately turning to the table.

She reached for the cup first, consciously deciding that whatever the letters contained called for the warm embrace of caffeine. After a few delightful sips, Narcissa decided to tackle family matters first. She was excited to to hear from her sister, – barring any sort of issues or emergencies – and based on what Lucius had said, Bella seemed to be thriving in her new environment. And, really, who could ask for more for the people they cared about?

_Cissy,_

_Can't_ _say_ _I'm_ _surprised. I_ _only_ _wish_ _you'd_ _followed my_ _advice_ _sooner._ _I'm_ _rarely ever_ _wrong_ _, dear sister._

_Rodolphus and_ _I_ _are married now, and_ _since you_ _finally_ _decided to take_ _my_ _advice_ _about_ _Malfoy,_ _I_ _decided_ _to take the advice you gave me; Rodolphus_ _isn't_ _all bad. He's needy and a bit over-dramatic, but_ _he's_ _not bad._

_Missing you dearly, and looking forward to seeing you at_   
_home for the holiday._

_Your sister,_   
_Bella_

Narcissa let her fingertips graze over the signature at the bottom, her eyes lingering on the last sentence and fighting away the sense of impending doom that she associated with the coming holiday.

After a moment, she neatly tucked the letter back into the envelope and returned it to her bedside table. She was looking forward to the prospect of seeing her sister, of course– but what she wasn't looking forward to was facing her parents. Surely, they'd be disappointed in her insistence to break off an engagement with a man that they'd picked for her, but she was certain that they'd be elated to hear of her new suitor. In their eyes, establishing even wealthier and more powerful connections was never a bad thing, and in Narcissa's eyes, she was finally finding happiness. Cygnus and Druella wouldn't be pleased to hear that her new relationship hadn't yet reached the betrothment stage, but if last night was any indication, she knew that it wasn't entirely off the table, either. 

The blonde then reached for the smaller piece of parchment and flattened the single fold, revealing Lucius' neat scrawl:

_Assigned to early rounds._ _Hopefully_ _the tea and mail will make up for my_ _error_ _in not letting_ _you_ _know sooner– forgive me, for_ _I_ _was a bit distracted last night and the_ _matter_ _slipped my mind._  
 _Walk with me to_ _class_ _later?_

She couldn't fight the smile that crept up onto her lips, briefly holding the note to her chest whilst taking another sip of tea and finishing it off. _Merlin,_ when had she become such a sap? To think, she could have had _this_ relationship with the Malfoy heir all along, rather than whatever the hell it was that she had with Thomas. Forever victimizing herself with her own obstitance and stubbornness, she had no one to blame but herself for the way the strenuous relationship seemed to drag on.

But none of that mattered anymore; soon, she would be able to call Lucius her own, and all she had to do was notify her parents to dissolve her supposed engagement to Nott. All would be well.

She hoped.

* * *

After pulling on her uniform and taking a few extra minutes for grooming, Narcissa made her way from the dorms to the Slytherin Common Room– and she was already glad she'd taken the extra time to get ready that morning. Sure, there had never been a single time in her life when she was under prepared or under dressed for any occasion, but she felt herself glowing with an added confidence when she saw Lucius leaning by the fireplace and waiting for her.

Throwing any remaining, microscopic semblance of caution and discretion to the wind, she immediately wrapped her arms around him and practically melted against his chest. This was what she should have woken up to: his chest below her cheek, his hand stroking her shoulder blade, and his scent permeating every one of her pores. After only a minor, nearly undetectable hesitation, he returned the gesture, enveloping her in an embrace that had far too much clothing separating them for her preference.

"You're lucky that this common room is empty, my dear," he muffled the greeting with his lips pressed to the top of her head. After the quick peck, he gently placed his hands on her shoulders and held her back so he could look down at her, silver eyes piercing turquoise. After a moment, his brought his thumbs to brush against her cheeks and she leaned into his touch without a second thought.

"I don't care if anyone sees us. Let them," she said. Lucius parted his lips to speak, but she was quick in pressing her forefinger to his lips before he had a chance to form the words. "And _no,_ I don't care what anyone else thinks. I chose you," she gathered his hands in hers, absently noticing how cold they were. She gave them a gentle squeeze before concluding, "I chose this."

At the moment Narcissa loosened her grip, his hands slipped free, pulling away just far enough to circle back and capture hers in one fluid movement. She chuckled at the gesture and just as his lips were ghosting across her knuckles, they were interrupted by the main doors to the common room flying open.

Narcissa felt her heart do something strange when she saw him. She wasn't sure if it was sinking because her moment with Lucius had been interrupted, or if it was racing because she was excited by the idea of Nott seeing the two of them together so publicly. Realistically, she knew that she wasn't in the wrong for pursuing this relationship, but from the outside looking in, the more students that found out about the three of them meant more people thinking she was easy. It was a slippery slope with jagged edges at the end, but when the blond heir redirected her gaze with two fingers to turn her head to look back up at him, all of her worries melted away.

Much to their surprise, Nott did nothing. He grumbled and sulked as he walked past them, but he didn't engage. _Pity_ , Narcissa thought. A small fraction of her old-fashioned subconscious was looking forward to watching Lucius duel for her affection. Still, she stared on and watched as Thomas disappeared into the stairwell that led to the boys' dormitories.

When she looked back at her wizard, he was watching her with a notably blank expression. Just as often as she found herself wanting to get lost in his sterling eyes, she found him losing himself in her; it was humbling and yet fed her ego all at once– but this look? It was not one of blind adoration. It was focused. Struggling. Brimming with something heavy.

"Are you alright?" She asked him as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

He allowed himself a brisk inhale, his eyebrows twitching upwards a single time whilst shaking his head as if he was physically ridding himself of an intrusive thought. "I'd forgotten about Nott for a moment, there," he nearly deadpanned, but then chose to tack on a brief, humorless chuckle at the end.

"I'm jealous," she grinned and pulled herself closer to him, closing in on the distance between their lips– far too much of a distance, as far as Narcissa was concerned.

Lucius certainly hadn't pulled away from her embrace, but he did appear to be otherwise standoffish. His spine was straight and stiff, his shoulders were tense; he was looking at her, but not quite _seeing_ her. She felt a worrying sense of dread begin to simmer in her stomach.

His eyes flitted down between the two of them and he took another long, drawn-out breath before he started to speak again. "I suppose what I meant to say was that I'd forgotten about your engagement to him." His voice was sincere and full of something that sounded awfully similar to a tune of regret, and suddenly, the simmering dread she felt turned into a full-blown boil. "I swear that I didn't mean to intrude upon your betrothment, that was rather dastardly of me."

The entire situation forced Narcissa to take pause. She wasn't quite sure if she'd stumbled into the largest, most elaborate joke to ever exist in the Wizarding World, because she was _certain_ that there was no way that _this_ was the same man she'd spent the previous evening with. Briefly, she entertained the idea of Polyjuice Potion somehow playing a role in this whole debacle, but before she was able to come to a theory that could hold water, she heard him speaking again; a low, muffled tenor reverberated in her ringing ears.

She held up her porcelain hands between their bodies, signaling – begging – for him to stop speaking and pulling faulty excuses out of his arse to justify the exact behaviors that he'd found himself reveling in not even twelve hours previously.

"I'm not a bloody house elf, Lucius! I am _not_ to be passed around from one keeper to the next until someone finally decides to ' _rise to the challenge'_ of wedding me. I am _more_ than capable as a witch; I am _not_ property, despite what my family's arranged marriage would have you believe, and I refused to be treated as such! I don't even _want thi_ s marriage!"

"Cissa–"

"–and I hardly understand why I wasn't given a choice in the first place! They both knew– both Nott _and_ my father! And neither of them told me." Her blood was certifiably boiling at this point. She was exhausted of these men running her life, acting as if they were entitled to her and her future. Even though she felt bound by duty to her family, she was sick of it.

She was sick of not being seen as her own person.

Suddenly, her fiery voice grew weary. "It makes sense as to why Thomas never said anything. He wanted to trap me– it's as simple as that," she brooded, unable to deny the fact that most wizards would have been after the power and inheritance that a Black sister brought to the table. "But my father's silence makes no sense. Bellatrix was given ample warning! She had several days to adjust to the idea..."

"Why do you think that is?" He asked, finally managing to get a word in edgewise.

Narcissa sighed, knowing that the entire process would be easier if she simply conceded to it– but she wouldn't take this one lying down. Not for Thomas. He wasn't worth her surrender. "I'm assuming it's for lack of other offers to compare _his_ to," her words were heavy and lamenting, feeling like an entire nest of Hippogriff's eggs had been laid on her chest.

Lucius paused momentarily before taking her hands back in his, placing her palms against his chest while using his thumbs to rub tiny circles against her knuckles. "Assuming that this arrangement is the same as any other ancient pure-blooded family tradition, I'm assuming the main obstacle for most is just money?"

"Unfortunately, you're correct," she answered without any sort of hesitation or second thought. She was despondent. She drank in the sight of her palms against his chest, and she silently wished that it would be a view she wouldn't ever have to give up... or, at least for a while. _Years,_ preferably. "And blood status," she sighed. "Not that I would want to marry anyone with dirty blood anyhow, no matter just how much they offered my father for a dowry."

In a voice that was terribly hushed, perhaps a volume that she wasn't meant to hear, she heard him mutter to himself. "But you didn't know about these plans when he sent the offer to your father?"

Narcissa shook her head, giving a humorless chuckle – perhaps it was from the absurdity of it all – she was tired of answering questions or pouring over theories. She just wanted to be done with it. "I was blindsided. If he had told me he was going to do it, I'd respect his honesty at the very least."

There was a long silence lingering between them. For the first time in her life, Narcissa had _no_ idea of what she needed to do to fix the situation. Just as the quiet was beginning to grate on her nerves, she slipped her hands free from his and started to turn away. It was evident that this was an equally difficult topic for him to discuss, and she didn't want to be the reason for any further stress in his life.

Without missing a beat, he captured her by her left wrist and pulled her face back up against his woolen uniform vest, acting as if the last thirty seconds of the grueling conversation hadn't existed. Lucius Malfoy was determined to not let her escape this conversation, knowing fully well that she'd just avoid it if given the chance. "Let me get this straight, if it's about money, then you'd be able to get out of this if someone else submitted a higher offer?"

The blonde gave a noncommittal chuckle before shrugging her shoulders. "I suppose," she answered plainly, hesitant for where the conversation was headed.

"Well, if you'd like me to," he started to run his fingers through her hair whilst absently praying to Merlin that he'd end up in her dorm again tonight. "Perhaps I could submit a higher–"

The sound of her scoffing cut him off, derailing his train of thought entirely.

"No."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I already know what you're going to say, Lucius, and the answer is _no_."

His mouth gaped as he stared at her in disbelief. He paused again, replaying the last fifteen seconds of his life in his head like a broken record, combing over the memory for a detail he may have missed to warrant such a hasty response. "So you'd rather spend your life with a man who doesn't respect you?" He challenged her. "Someone who views you as property?"

Narcissa was silent.

"Come now, Cissa. Us Malfoy men are infamous for our traditional beliefs, but even _we're_ not as bad as the Notts There's no excuse for his piggish ways."

She actively fought any urge to reason with him or trying to get him to admit that he had no business being as adamant about the subject as he was. It wasn't his place. "And yet you and I hardly know each other. We're barely even on a first-name basis," she reminded him. She was agonizing over this conversation and each word felt like a sharp pin prick spearing through her heart.

She wanted to be with him. She did. But to allow him to resume such a role out of a sense of obligation felt irresponsible to her. "How do I know you won't turn out just like him? Thomas was sweet and charming at first, too, you know," she made her final, last-ditch attempt to stifle his seemingly boundless efforts.

Malfoy sneered– a small, shadow of a sneer that she likely would have missed if she hadn't been standing in such close proximity to him. "I suppose you have no way of knowing," he shrugged, "and of course the devil you _do_ know is slightly more comforting than the devil you don't." He punctuated the statement with a smirk, arms crossing at his chest. "Although, as much as I _do_ admire the ferocity of your stubbornness, I can't help but feel like your vehement denial is just a well-practiced reflex– but you would probably just assume that that was my _own_ piggish nature coming to the forefront."

There was another pause as Narcissa thought about all of the possible ways this plan could backfire. This morning, she'd only wanted to break off her engagement– not end up in an entirely new one! Besides, his flip-flopping on the subject was dizzying. One moment, he was profusely apologizing for fear of being a homewrecker to a marriage that didn't exist yet, and then the next minute, he was telling her all of the ways he should buy Thomas out of the arrangement.

There were times when she found herself wondering if he was able to read her mind. This conversation was a shining example of one of those times.

"Just tell me what it is that you _want,_ " he pleaded with her. "I know this situation is confusing, but truly, I only want for you to have the best. To be happy–"

"Why?" She interrupted. "Why would you do that for me?" She desparately searched his procellous eyes for an answer. She wanted to know what he _felt_ , not what he thought he was obligated to do. "You haven't had a chance to live your life yet. Why tie yourself down to a witch who is currently in one of the most..." she hesitated. "... _fucked up_ circumstances of her life?"

Wrapping her in his arms once more, his palm found it's way to the back of her head and guided her to return to his chest. As he resumed running his fingers through her hair, she took a deep breath and allowed her racing thoughts to settle with his warm touch and heady scent.

Last night, she'd felt that it was too early to fall in love with him. It was a classic case of 'too much, too soon.' Still, she hadn't been able to help herself from wondering if he felt that way, too.

Narcissa felt his lips press against the crown of her head and he mumbled into her hair with a volume where only she'd be able to hear him. "It's as I've told you before, Cissa. You're my Empress. I'll do whatever it takes to protect you and to see you happy."

And it was with that promise that all of her doubts disappeared.


	15. XV

During the week that followed Lucius' impromptu proposal, - one that she hadn't given a definitive answer to despite every artery, vein, and capillary within her heart practically _screaming_ at her to say yes to - the entirety of the school grounds had been blanketed with a fresh, delicate sheet of white snow. It was pleasant enough with the milder winds in the early afternoons and the snowfall gentle enough to not impede on students walking between classes or engaging in any outdoor activities. 

While Narcissa was losing the battle with herself in staving off the inescapable feeling of something being _wrong,_ the recurring words on their classmates' lips had been centered around the upcoming break from school.

Time was inevitable as the holiday break only drew nearer, and with each passing day, Narcissa's anxiety surrounding Christmastime only grew. She'd settled into a comfortable rhythm with Lucius, but deep down, she couldn't help but feel like he'd only proposed to raise a higher bid on her dowry because he felt obligated to. Sure, there was no denying that their attraction was mutual, and it was fantastic that the basis of it wasn't just sex like how hers and Thomas' had started - but she also knew from firsthand experience just how awful it felt to feel duty-bound to meet the demands of social and familial expectations. 

Her conscience nagged at her to consider Andromeda and the shame she brought upon their family by her less-than-acceptable choice in mate - while her current situation was decidedly less scandalous, did she really want to test the waters of her father's patience and end up disowned and exiled in the same manner that her eldest sister had? She shuddered at the memories of the burnt portraits and missing branches on their family tapestry at their Aunt Walburga's house in Islington; Narcissa was certain that Andromeda's likeness had immediately been reduced to ash following her nuptials, - and considering Bellatrix's initial hesitancy to wed Rodolphus, she'd narrowly escaped identical treatment - but the youngest Black sister was determined to not have her portrait meet the same fate.

Narcissa's logical left brain warred with her romantic right brain - her romantic side told her that, while her relationship with Lucius was still fresh, they were undoubtedly in love and meant to be together, and no matter what happened, he'd always be there to catch her if she fell. Part of it even tried to argue with her and say that there was a small chance that her parents would be _thrilled_ with her choice in future husband; perhaps it even would have been reality if she'd acknowledged her attraction to the Malfoy heir sooner if they'd just swallowed their pride and given each other a chance in spite of something as silly as not wanting to be viewed as a stereotype. But her logical mind was in agreement with her conscience: she knew that her father was a man of his word, and if she'd chosen to go against it, there would be hell to pay.

Pondering the worst case scenario, if Cygnus made the decision to go as far as disowning her and cutting her off from the family and their fortune, she knew that even Lucius - the hopeless romantic that he was when it came to her - wouldn't claim her for fear of _also_ being cut off. Formidable as it was, it's just how things were _done_ in pure blood circles. The man of the house made the decisions for his family, and there were two options: follow his lead, or don't. Those that were born into wealthy, pure-blooded nobility never had to ask what the consequences of the _'or don't'_ entailed. The sense of self-preservation had been bred into their very bones.

Despite what her conscience, her brain, or logic had to say, her pulse raced when she saw him and her heart fluttered when he held her in his arms. If she'd allowed her heart to lead her in the same way that Andromeda so carelessly did, she couldn't refrain from imagining a picturesque future with him. Even in the event of the worst case scenario coming to pass, her stomach felt as though it had erupted into a glorious, glowing meteor shower. She pictured the two of them living in a modest, six-bedroom townhome in the heart of Wizarding London. She'd have a rose garden and a small staff of elves and bake him a pan of lemon bars every day before he arrived home from his job at the Ministry - because they were both resilient and would make the most of the worst situation. Sometimes, she even dared to imagine a few blond-haired children with sterling-colored eyes running about and driving the elves mad. 

"If you were any further away, you'd probably disapparate," he whispered in her ear as he raised his arm and flourished his fingertips to wandlessly re-cast a warming charm around themselves before returning to embrace her once more. 

They'd been sitting under the Whomping Willow which had briefly gone into some sort of hibernation since the snow began to collect on the ground. With her back against his chest and his arms around her shoulders, - occasionally rubbing his palms down her biceps as an excuse to feel more of her, despite insisting that he was simply trying to keep her warm - Narcissa had been using her arithmancy textbook as an excuse for her silence. However, her effort was fruitless as she'd become so wrapped up in her thoughts that she'd forgotten to turn the page at the appropriate time.

She laughed aloud and let her book fall limp against the layers of wool that covered her abdomen, tilting her head to lay back against his shoulder while breathing in an invigorating lungful of wintery air before visibly dispelling it. "Alright, you caught me," she easily conceded, finding familiar solace in their banter. Like any other time, she'd expected him to immediately return with another witty remark, but when he'd only said, "I know," she craned her neck back to look at him.

As if by reflex or instinct, his enveloping arms tightened around her as his forehead fell to press against hers. For a moment, she was certain that if it hadn't been for his warming charms or the numerous layers of clothing separating them, she theorized that she'd still be perfectly balmy from the intense pressure of his embrace. After a few seconds, he'd let up some and gazed down at her momentarily before dropping a lingering kiss on her lips. Whenever her smile broke their kiss and grazed against his mouth, he paused and smiled back before kissing her again. All the while, his fingertips trailed down her arms to find his left palm encircling her wrist before he brought her hand up to his face. He turned his head away from her, brushing his lips against her knuckles and then turning her hand over and pressing one, two, three, and four kisses against the pads of her fingers. He traced down further, his nose rubbing a small circle into her palm before she felt a warm exhale against her wrist that made her shudder. 

"I feel compelled to ask you what your holiday plans are," he intoned against her tendon in anticipation of kissing it softly.

It was an innocent question. One that any man shouldn't cast a second thought to in regards to posing it to his girlfriend - and it felt like absolute madness for her feel her stomach twist and her lungs tighten when he finished with the words. It had been a topic that she'd been trying her damnedest to avoid thinking about, much less discussing it with another party. 

The truth was that her parents were expecting to host her and Thomas _together_ now that they were betrothed - and if she was being honest with herself, she wasn't certain if it was the word _'together'_ or _'betrothed'_ making her insides churn more, but she did know that using them in the same sentence as Thomas' name nearly sent her into a tailspin. 

Lucius gently placed her hand back down to her side and brought his palms to her shoulders, insistent and yet dispirited in their pressure. "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," he reassured her. "I just figured whatever you had going on would be significantly more entertaining than the same old drawl of the traditions at Malfoy Manor." He'd finished with a smirk, shaping up his tone to something more casual and neutral, unsure of whether or not she suddenly felt uncomfortable with the combination of intimate discussion and tender touch.

"I can assure you that I'd love to hear about it," she replied, feeling a small rush of blood color her cheeks at her word choice. It wasn't the first time she'd used the word in such close proximity to him inside her head, but it _was_ the first time she'd said it out loud and she wasn't sure if it felt freeing or constricting. Perhaps a fusion of both? 

She inwardly scolded herself for giving so much weight to a word that she'd only used in a casual context. All of this business with Thomas had been making her soft with Lucius, and to say that she felt conflicted about it would have been the understatement of the millennia. 

"Well, when I was growing up, my mother used to bake gingerbread cookies," he laughed and his eyes glinted, losing himself in the warmth of the memory. "But she's been too frail to do that for the past two years, so -" he sighed. "I imagine this year won't be any different."

"And your father?" She asked without missing a beat, trying to steer the conversation from taking on a depressing theme. Of course, she'd talk about it and console him if that had been what he wanted, but being that she was doing her best to avoid the worriment of her own holiday plans, she still attempted to shift the course of discussion - not wanting to waste such a lovely day on fretting over things that neither of them could ultimately control.

It was the follow-up question that he'd been expecting, but he still couldn't manage to stifle the sharp exhale through his nose. "Father invites his friends over and drinks goblin brandy in his office." He glanced down at his left forearm, and Narcissa hadn't noticed until that moment that she'd been tracing her fingertips against the wool as he spoke. "But I suppose he'll be expecting me to join them this year, considering my new status." He spoke in reference to the skull and serpent that adorned his arm. If her hand lingered in one place for too long, she could almost swear that she felt the heat radiating from it through his clothes. She wondered how he could stand it.

"But it's not all bad," he said with a slight nod toward the horizon. "It's mostly peaceful during the break, and it's always wonderful getting to spend time with my family, no matter how small it may be."

"Family is family no matter how big or small," she parroted the sentiment with a soft, amenable tone. 

He brought his hand back up to her chin and traced his thumb against her lower lip before giving her a small smile when she melted into the caress. "I only wish you were able to come with me. I know my mother would adore you."

She laughed against his touch. After several moments of thoughtful, comfortable silence and when his arms fell back down to hold her again, Narcissa took a deep breath, steadied by his gentle calmness and ready to talk about what had been troubling her. Still, she didn't make eye contact with him when she broached the topic for fear of instantly losing the nerve that he'd just so carefully rebuilt. "My mother owled me and said that Thomas would be spending the holiday with us. She and father thought it was appropriate since my sister and her husband would also be there."

Narcissa felt his chest rise with a thoughtful sigh against her back, and she felt herself tense in anticipation of him becoming upset. But he didn't. He simply continued to rub his thumb against her wrist with one hand, while the fingers of his opposite hand remained laced with hers. After they'd had a few quiet moments to collect their thoughts, he broke the silence. 

"I take it that means you haven't begun hinting to them that you're unhappy with him and want to be with someone else." His voice was calm and even, and suddenly, Narcissa thought that she'd almost preferred for him to be angry with her. She found that she'd grown accustomed to the inherent anger that dominated Thomas' disposition, and in turn, she'd gained the skill of grappling with it. Managing _both_ of their expectations when she'd done something minute that resulted in his outbursts. 

But this? This was disappointment. Sadness. It was foreign to her and it made her heart drop before she could even begin to consider how to properly cope with the guilt she'd suddenly become riddled with and instantly consumed by. She'd automatically come to the conclusion that she hated bringing such a rotten emotion into his orbit - anytime she'd done something that resulted in Thomas' frequent and explosive bouts of distemper, she couldn't have cared less about apologizing or fixing it. But it didn't take much pondering before she ultimately decided that anger was much easier to deal with than sadness... and yet, she swore she'd do anything to right this wrong and take his pain away. 

"Lucius, I want to. Truly, I do," she started as she sat up from his arms and turned to face him. "It's just that -" he cupped his hands underneath the bends of her knees and pulled her to wrap her legs around him. He kissed her and ran his fingers through her hair and she mirrored the reassuring touches.

"You don't have to say anything," he said to her with a half-smile. "I understand."

It was with those solemn words that every single thought, hope, and fear that she'd ever felt in regard to him and their relationship came spilling from her mouth like a waterfall that fed into a riptide. It was unbelievably difficult and embarrassing and and raw, and she felt like she was drowning. But each spoken word and stray tear paved the way and laid a path, a foundation, that only made each incoming truth and admission easier. It was amazingly cathartic and wonderful and manumitting - like she'd been bound in chains that slowly began to unlock with each new doubt or fear that she expressed as she bared her soul to him. It felt like she could finally fly.

All the while, his eyes twinkled in amazement and wonder at her.

Once she'd been satisfied with her own admissions, they stared at one another in complete silence, save for the rhythmic thrumming of their elevated heart rates, before both of their faces cracked into smiles and they erupted into a freeing, breathless fit of laughter. 

They fell forward into each other, firmly holding their bodies together as they muffled their giggles into one another's shoulders. Anyone walking by surely would have thought they'd gone mad. Absolutely insane. Certifiably bonkers. But it was in that moment that they unanimously threw caution to the wind and damned to hell the pure blood etiquette that had been beaten into them with the childhood hammer of fear.

But it stopped just as quickly as it started when Thomas Nott came casually strolling up as if his fiancée wasn't straddling the lap of his ex-best friend as they raucously laughed with tears streaming down their faces.

No. He knew that he needn't worry himself with that. Not yet. 

"Nari," he called out to her, pushing her laughter to an abrupt halt when she recognized his voice. When she turned to face him with wide eyes, still planted on Lucius' lap, Nott offered her a grin before pulling two pocket squares from the pocket of his trousers and held them up to the pair of ties that hung unceremoniously from his neck. "Which ones do you think? You know, for Christmas dinner with your family."

Feeling less fearful and more like she could easily conquer the world single-handedly, she wiped her nose and cheek with the sleeve of her coat before rolling her eyes and scoffing at him. "I dunno, Thomas. Which one is closer in color to your arsehole? Seems appropriate, considering that you constantly act like one."

Only momentarily taken aback, he returned with a laugh and made an affectionate humming sound as he returned the pocket squares to his trousers. "This is why I'm so excited to make you my wife, Nari. You've always known how to use that sharp tongue of yours to make my bollocks twitch - among other things." 

In the expanse of a heartbeat, Narcissa had risen to her feet and stood only centimeters from him, toe-to-toe. Her chest rose and fell with the increasing rapidity of her breaths, but before she could muster a string of words that portrayed even a fraction of the disgust that she felt for him, he'd cupped her face in his hands and stared in her eyes. 

She barely caught a glimpse of Lucius in her peripheral vision as he approached from behind her, and she soon found Lucius' hand wrapped around one of the wrists that cradled her chin. 

Entirely unfazed, he let out a low chuckle, and then a scoff when Lucius successfully pulled one of his hands away. "Worry not, my beautiful bride. We'll be together, I guarantee it. After all, I did take an Unbreakable Vow with your parents when your father accepted my offer for your hand. Your mum acted as the binder and everything."

What followed was a silence that either lasted for several minutes or a fraction of a second with no in-between and no way to differentiate between the two. Time had simply ceased to exist and Narcissa began to feel dizzy as the blood rushed to her ears. 

"No- you..." was all she could manage with a pitiful squeak as the cruelty of reality came crashing down upon her like a tidal wave. In the blink of an eye, she was bound in her old chains and being dragged out to sea by the most violent riptide she'd been caught in yet. 

Her eyesight became spotty as her brain conjured visions of her mother and father falling dead at the dinner table when she told them about her relationship with another man.

After overcoming what had been the most heart-wrenching obstacle of her life thus far, after feeling happy and free and laughing with the man she loved, after knowing, feeling in her heart that he reciprocated- It was all gone. It had been _just_ within her reach and then ripped away in an instant by two of the heaviest words she ever heard.

In an attempt to regain her balance as her world tipped upside down, she pressed her palm into the Whomping Willow, the bark prickling against her and giving her hypersensitive skin the sensation of pins and needles. She felt like she was going to vomit, or faint, or both. Inundated with anger, resentment, disgust, and a heavy, overbearing sadness that she couldn't even begin to comprehend, she turned her head and began to call for the Prefect, her lover, her calm in a succession of powerful storms.

Thomas had begun to turn and walk away, but Lucius had grabbed him by the collar and spun him around by the shoulders to face him. 

Thomas' right hand twitched, beginning the motion of reaching for his wand, but Lucius' left hand re-grabbed the shirt collar that peeked above Nott's coat. 

Before he had the chance to put his hands up or to even utter an objection, Lucius' fist drew back and then flew forward through the air before meeting Nott's nose with a loud, painful crunch.


	16. XVI

The icy gusts of wind viciously whipped around the lower school grounds near the train platform and carriages. A sea of pink, windblown faces surrounded the platforms, all of the students hugging and wishing their friends and fellow classmates a Happy Christmas before they boarded their respective modes of transportation and made their departure.

Juniper insisted on walking arm-in-arm with Narcissa, despite her adamant refusal. _"_ _Really_ _, June, I promise I'll_ _be_ _fine walking by myself. I'm sure your boyfriend will miss you,"_ she'd told her friend.

 _"Oh it's no_ _trouble_ _at all, and_ _I_ _swear he'll be fine! He's not really my boyfriend anyway - Wouldn't be the first or last time_ _I_ _told him to sod off so_ _I_ _could see a girl friend,"_ Juniper had replied in an airy, chipper tone as she had taken Narcissa's arm; she hadn't let go a single time since they'd left the Slytherin Common Room.

Still, part of Narcissa was happy for the company. She hadn't seen Thomas since he'd scampered off with his bruised face and bruised ego the previous day, and while she'd seen Lucius, they hadn't spoken again once they'd parted ways from the Whomping Willow. It's not that she didn't want to see him. She _did_ , truly. But knowing what she knew now about the Unbreakable Vow between her father and her ill-begotten fiancé left a sinking feeling in her stomach.

In the span of the ten seconds between Thomas telling her about the vow and Lucius nearly knocking him out cold, Narcissa had to make a decision that would make her the loser no matter the outcome. If she'd stayed with Lucius and carried on with her plan to break things off with Thomas, it would have been impossible for Cygnus to be able to fulfill his end of the deal by giving Narcissa's hand in marriage – meaning he'd broken his vow and would pay for it with his life; Narcissa knew she'd never be able to live with the guilt of her father's blood on her hands.

Conversely, she had the option of marrying Thomas and keeping her father alive, but it was at the cost of a lifetime of marital misery and emotional abuse at the hand of a man who viewed her more as a conquest or a piece of property than as a witch.

Her head spun at the dizzying rapidity of it all. After months of angst, in less than an hour she'd come to terms with her complicated feelings about the man that she was in love with and the _actual_ man that she was supposed to wed. She'd told her lover all of her doubts, fears, hopes, and dreams and sobbed in the process; she fearfully gave a rare demonstration in vulnerability as she exposed the most raw and threadbare fibers of her soul to the man that felt like he was miraculously weaving her delicate pieces of emotional silk into steel.

He was the same man that kissed her with such reverence that he made it seem like he considered it a pleasure to even breathe her air. He'd stared into her very soul and nearly bared his own before they'd been interrupted by his mortal antithesis.

The dichotomy of their physical presentations hadn't even begun to scratch the surface of their differences as mere _people._ Thomas was arrogant, short-tempered, and had a mean streak that would make a centaur seem like a saint. But Lucius, to her, was kind and sweet and had done everything shy of kissing her feet in worship of her existence. He carried himself with a quiet, almost intimidating confidence and stood as the textbook example of polished refinement. He looked at her with awe in his eyes and told her that she was powerful and intelligent. He'd kiss her palms and stroke her hair when they woke up together. She saw a future with him.

He was everything to her.

And now she couldn't have him.

Juniper had been endlessly chatting away about anything and everything and nothing at all, and just as Narcissa began to feel a tear threaten to spill over her lower lashline, she decided to check back in to whatever it was that Juniper had been animatedly fretting about. _Ah,_ Narcissa fought to roll her eyes at the vapid concerns, _the assigned reading over the holidays._ Secretly, however, she was grateful for the distraction.

When Narcissa had finally begun to actively engage in the conversation, it was almost immediately that she noticed Juniper's eyes sliding away from hers and falling to look past her shoulder. The first time, she thought nothing of it. The second time, she thought that perhaps Juniper saw a friend off in the distance. After the third time, the blonde's eyebrows knitted together and she stopped mid-sentence to ask what it was she was just so bloody _fascinated_ by.

"I think I saw Blaire walk over this way–" she started, but hummed indecisively between words as if she wasn't entirely sure what she was going to say. "I'm going to go wish her a Happy Christmas. See you!" She'd rushed the words and didn't spare her friend a second glance as she slipped by.

Narcissa's eyes were determined to follow her, resolutely unconvinced by whatever excuse _that_ had been, but when she turned her shoulders as Juniper walked past her peripheral vision, she'd automatically regretted it.

Lucius stood behind her. Quiet. Still. Face blank.

It hurt to see him this way. She wanted to spin around and have him scoop her up in his arms and kiss him and tell him that everything was going to be okay. But she couldn't, because it wasn't. So she didn't.

Instead, she glazed a cursory glance over his lips and turned back around without a word. They were surrounded by chatter and buzz with scattered train whistles and the squeaking wheels on the carriages. She knew that she should talk to him – but she just _couldn't_ do that right now. She needed time to process everything. To get a grip on her new reality as the future Lady Nott.

The herds of students that surrounded them began to thin out and when neither of them hadn't yet dared to move, she finally let out a sigh when Ogg, the school groundskeeper, called for the last of the students who planned on riding the carriages to the transfer point to board.

"So this is it, then," she lamented. She'd intended it as a rhetorical question, but it sounded more like a statement. After a second, she conceded that either was fine and essentially got her point across – not daring to acknowledge the storm she felt brewing in her chest.

"No," he said with a notable level of casual boredom in his voice. "It's not."

Narcissa's practiced expression of neutrality instantaneously twisted into one of disbelief, with anger bubbling just below the surface. "What do you _mean_ it's not?" She practically bit out the words. "You heard him. He said they took a vow. I'm not going to let my father die simply because I didn't want to participate in my arranged marriage!"

Lucius nodded once, acknowledging her fear, informal as the simple gesture was. "No one has to die, Cissa–"

"No," She said as she confidently spun to face him again, staring up into his mercurial eyes and wishing she could bask in the warmth and comfort he used to spoil her with. "You're right. No one _has_ to die, because I'm going to be upholding my father's wishes for my future by marrying Nott."

His nose scrunched almost an indiscernable amount; by the time the expression had registered in her mind, it was long gone. "He won't die," he reassured her with a familiar, calm tenor. "No one will."

Her face trained for a neutral expression, but she knew that her eyes were brimming with sadness and anger. She almost didn't want to entertain whatever it was that he was about to say; perhaps it was dramatic and selfish, but she wanted to start the process of mourning her life ahead of her and the relationship she could have had.

"I've got an idea," he resumed in a low voice as he brought his fingertips up to her jaw, his thumb just barely grazing her lower lip before his palm settled on her cheek.

She wanted to be angry. She wanted to roll her eyes and to tell him to go to hell for trying to instill false hope in her. Instead, without realizing it, her right hand rose to rest on top of his as she leaned into his touch – as if she'd pulled his hand into her orbit and wanted to hold it there until the end of time. "I'm afraid they're called 'Unbreakable Vows' for a reason," she supplied with a melancholy tone.

His other hand rose to cup her chin, pulling her away from the fingertips that rubbed gentle circles against her cheek. He smirked as he used the leverage to tilt her head back to look up at him, and she wanted to be mad, but she couldn't. No matter what he said, she – like an addict bargaining for her last fix – knew that she was on borrowed time with him and she knew she'd be foolish to refuse his touch.

"That's true," he smiled. "But you and I both know that a little bit of grey magic could easily be undone by blood magic."

She blinked. "What?"

"The Malfoy name doesn't go back as far as the Black name, but even _our_ family library has books on blood magic and rituals to reverse magical curses and vows. I'm sure your family home will have something just as, if not more, interesting or detailed."

She shook her head. Yes, the Black family was known for it's masterful bookkeeping and stores of personal records. Blood magic, Dark magic, astrology, and rituals were all inherent parts of being a descendent of The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black – but just because it was written in her genetic make-up doesn't mean that she, personally, was well-versed in it.

It would be like asking Weasley to assemble a muggle car engine. He knew quite a bit about the subject and took a lot of interest in it, but that didn't mean he wasn't ignorant to the finer intricacies of it.

She took pride in her heritage and who she was, but she was just _that:_ ignorant on the smaller details. She could recite every single name on their family tapestry dating back to the beginning of time. She could recite the birth and death dates of every single generation, and the major accomplishments of any Black from the last fifteen generations. To say that she wasn't intimately knowledgeable with her family's own history was factually incorrect, but to say that they were _all_ masters of the Dark Arts and Ancient Magicks wouldn't exactly be right, either.

"I have no clue what you're talking about," she concluded after shaking her head again.

He playfully rolled his eyes before cradling her face in his hands for a moment and letting them fall to her inner shoulders. "You won't be obligated to marry someone if your soul is bound to another. It will render the Unbreakable Vow null and void, even if the bond occurs after the conception of the Vow."

She gave him a puzzled look. Not because she didn't understand – no. She understood _too_ well.

Lucius' hands fell from her shoulders before he folded his arms across his chest. "Why do you think Slughorn didn't want you talking about your family's alteration of standard Amortentia?" He asked with a smirk.

She gave an indignant laugh at his unwavering confidence in a potion recipe that didn't even belong to _his_ family, but once she'd lost the contact of his touch, she couldn't have cared less about the topic at hand – the warm feeling in the center of her chest had dissipated entirely, and she was left feeling cold; she mourned the loss of his touch in the same way she knew she'd mourn the loss of his presence in her life.

"Ah, silly me!" Her tongue sarcastically weaved between each word, trying to forcibly push away the chill that bloomed in her lungs. "Allow me to just go and pick up some random person stumbling down the street in Hogsmeade and convince them to bind their souls to mine for all eternity!"

He stared at her blankly for a moment, and the very second that his lips threatened to twitch into a frown, she scoffed and turned on her heel to head back toward the carriages, clutching to her satchel with a white knuckle grip that would have been visible if it hadn't been for her gloves.

She didn't want it to end this way. _Merlin_! She didn't want it to end at all! But she knew that if she didn't aim for a clean break, he'd just keep trying to convince her, and she wasn't sure if she could handle having her heart repeatedly fractured every single time she looked into his eyes or when his fingertips brushed her skin.

Just as she started to walk away, snow crunching beneath her dragonhide boots, she felt a hand gently but firmly grip her shoulder and turn her back around. 

"Why would you do that?" He asked. He lacked sadness or anger or annoyance. He was simply seeking to understand.

"Why wouldn't I?" She seethed. "Pretending for a moment that it _is_ real, I couldn't realistically expect anyone I know to carry such a burden."

"So do you think that kind of magic is fake, or do you just think that it wouldn't work?" He challenged, eyes steeling over when he gazed at her and hungrily read into every microscopic movement that passed over her face, her eyes, her lips.

"Neither– " Narcissa began to counter, but she was quickly interrupted.

"Because we can always add a number of runes depicted in the Malfoy family archives," he supplied casually, as if he was talking about last weekend's quidditch scores.

 _We?_ She didn't like this.

 _No_.

She hated it. She hated that he was getting himself involved to this extent. There were Sacred Twenty-Eight families that had been _founded_ on blood rituals that no longer practiced them due to their precarious nature. This wasn't something that he could _casually_ propose mere seconds before they were expected to board the carriages and go home for two weeks!

"No one in this school deserves the burden of being bogged down by a marriage and familial expectations for all eternity from the moment they graduate– least of all would be you!"

Her argument had evidently fallen on deaf ears when his smile cracked through again. The whistle sounded on the Hogwarts Express. The last carriage would leave soon. She couldn't deal with this right now.

He closed his hands around her wrists and brought them up to his neck; he was staring deeply into her eyes again, piercing her soul, connecting the pale flecks of starlight in her crystalline gaze before giving her a sad half-smile. "I wouldn't call the prospect of spending all eternity with you a burden, Narcissa."

* * *

When Narcissa arrived back home by carriage later that evening, she'd fully expected the knot in her throat to have sunk, to have disappeared, but it remained. She'd made her preliminary polite greeting to her mother and father when she passed through the front door, but she was quick to seek solace in the privacy of her bedroom.

Everything was just as she had left it – her wrought iron four-poster bed with a grey canopy, the lavender colored silk curtains against the glass door that opened into a balcony that overlooked the gardens. There was also a sizeable black vanity pushed against one of the side walls, and on the opposing wall was a modest, marble fireplace which had a painting of her late Grandmother Irma.

Irma was lightly dozing off in her chair when Narcissa had arrived home, her hands neatly folded into her lap as her head tilted slightly in the direction of the empty chair beside her – the one reserved for Grandfather Pollux when he passed away.

Narcissa wasn't in her room for ten minutes before her grandmother awoke from her cat nap, and despite the sudden lack of gentle snores, Irma's voice appearing suddenly had truly startled Narcissa.

"Welcome home, my darling granddaughter!" She'd tried again once Narcissa regained her breathing.

"Oh, grandmother, you gave me a fright!" Narcissa expressed with her palm to her chest as she looked up at the portrait of the aristocratic woman in grey robes who smiled down at her.

"I believe congratulations are in order, my dear?" She grinned.

The Black women were hardly ever spotted doing something as common as _grinning_ – it caused wrinkles, and it was always of the utmost importance to maintain a neutral façade as to not give away any secrets – but Narcissa and Irma had always shared a special, private bond despite never meeting one another before Irma's death. She was easily the most attached to her youngest granddaughter, and there were times when Narcissa had to remind herself that it was just a portrait that she'd find herself spending hours confiding in during the early hours of the night.

But for the first time in her life, the blonde didn't feel like talking to her grandmother about something. She wanted to occlude the entirety of her relationship with Thomas; she wanted to stuff it in a box, cast an Incendio, and then use a Bombarda to turn the ashes into a bomb to use against anyone who dared to question her about it.

Was her desire to isolate this new installment of her life from the one woman – _portrait –_ that she'd always shared intimate details with wrong? In that moment, she couldn't be sure. She couldn't be sure of anything other than how much agony she was in over the whole situation.

Narcissa gave a stiff nod. "Thank you, grandmother."

Irma's brows raised and she gave her descendent a long, firm assessment. "What's troubling you, child?" She asked suspiciously. "I remember when the Nott boy first began courting you and you couldn't stop talking about him."

Narcissa's eyes shot down to the floor at the same time her left hand rose to her right bicep – but as soon as she remembered Lucius' warm grip on her arms, she allowed it to fall back to her side. "Yes, I know, but – nothing is wrong. Everything is as it should be."

She continued to eye her granddaughter for any clues to the source of her discomfort. "Very well, then," Irma conceded, her voice and eyes still bubbling with suspicion. She loved and valued the open, honest relationship that they held. However, she knew that once her granddaughter's mind had been made up about something – _that_ was final. And her decision to keep this matter private had been just that. She started to walk toward the corner of the frame after she rose from the velvet chair in her painting. "I suppose I'll leave you to it then–"

"Wait!"

Irma's heels nearly skit across the painted floorboards when she heard the distress in her granddaughter's voice.

Narcissa sighed as she tried to settle her twisting stomach. Why was she so nervous? She'd spoken with her grandmother on countless occasions about even more broadly controversial topics – so why did this one matter?

She remembered Lucius' parting words in her ear before she boarded her carriage.

And then she remembered that her father's life was on the line.

When Narcissa had called after her, she'd already regretted the question before it passed through her lips.

"What could you tell me about the books on blood magic in our library?"

The elder witch visibly bristled at the question and the younger witch wasn't sure what to make of the immediate negative reaction. Most witches and wizards were decidedly _for_ or _against_ the use of blood magic – but she never would have guessed that her own family was against it after consistently maintaining a modest archive about the topic through each new generation.

"May I ask why you'd like to use them?" Irma asked plainly, still studying her granddaughter for any reaction at all and not hiding her concern.

"I've just always wanted to know a bit more about our family's history with blood magic," Narcissa lied coolly as she took a lock of her hair and twirled it between her fingers. "We're infamous for it, and yet I seem to know almost nothing about it."

Even though she'd previously thought it impossible, Irma's brow traveled further north with suspicion. What once was a face riddled with concern quickly shifted to one written in mischief as her lips twitched up into a smirk.

"What would you like to know?"


	17. XVII

_One last dinner. One last dinner. One last dinner._

The phrase kept repeating in her head like a personal mantra. Like if she said it enough times, it would be over with quicker. Short of having a time turner, there would unfortunately be no other way to skip past the current tragedy that was her last family dinner before the holiday concluded and she was expected to return to Hogwarts. Besides, even if she _had_ a time turner, she wouldn't waste it by jumping ahead when she could go back and tell Nott to off himself whenever he initially asked to court her. 

Narcissa felt a palm grip her knee beneath the dining table. 

"...and once we made it to London, we bolted straight for the..." Bellatrix was in the middle of telling the family about she and Rodolphus' trip to the Ministry, but Cissa was hardly listening. She'd been wrapped in her own thoughts, and the only thing that managed to pull her away from them thus far was the stomach-churning sensation of her _fiancé_ running his hand up her thigh.

She jerked her knee in a fruitless attempt to shake him off while simultaneously maintaining a stoic expression as to not interrupt her family's conversation, but his grip remained firmly planted in place. She silently contemplated if going to Azkaban would be worth it, but even _that_ little fantasy was short-lived when the pads of his fingers trailed further north.

Suddenly, a better use for a time turner sprung to mind: she could go back in time far enough to make sure that Thomas Nott had never even been conceived in the first place!

She stifled a chuckle and covered the sound with a quiet cough into her napkin.

"I'm so pleased to hear that you're both not only enjoying each others' company as newlyweds, but also participating in promoting pureblood standards," Druella's voice carried like a song down the length of the table towards Bella. "It's so lovely that things are finally settling back into place with our family." 

A small staff of house elves filed into the dining room. With a snap of their fingers, the first course plates that sat before the family disappeared, and with another snap, even more covered platters came floating in. _Small mercies_ , Cissa thought to herself, knowing that each passing course meant that the holiday was coming to an end and she was ever closer to coming out unscathed. 

"Speaking of newlyweds," Druella turned to her youngest daughter with a polite smile. "Are you excited, my dear?"

"For what?" She pretended she didn't know what her mother was talking about – mostly to get a rise out of Thomas.

Her mother's brows cinched together, creasing in the center from her confusion. "Your wedding, of course."

"She simply can't stop talking about it, Lady Black," Thomas beamed from her side with a saccharine voice that had been concocted from a lifetime of mastering the art of manipulation and social cues.

His face had mostly healed from Lucius' punch with the help of some dittany and a basic healing charm, but even those could only do so much for the residual swelling and bruising that he'd attempted to mask with a less-than-effective glamouring charm.

Squeezing down on her knee again, he leaned over to whisper in her ear, "playing stupid doesn't suit you, beautiful."

"Oh?" Narcissa turned to face Nott with an equally fabricated look of reverence before averting her eyes back to Druella. "Mother, I've already gotten Grandmother Irma's permission, but I just wanted to let you know that I'll be borrowing a book from our library."

"Is that so, darling? Which one?"

Narcissa smirked when she felt the curious stare of her sister and the suspicious glare of her fiancé burning holes in the opposite sides of her head. "One of our family's heirloom journals about blood magic and soul binding. The leather-bound one with the silver embossed filigree on the front."

The only sound that filled the room was a brief, quiet gasp of surprise from her mother. The momentary silence that followed was deafening, and it was evident to the surrounding tablemates that Narcissa seemed to be the only person that was in on this scheme – flummoxed glances and curious eyes passed from one face to the next, each of them searching desperately for some sort of hint that someone else knew what was going on.

But all that they saw was the hint of a satisfied smile on Narcissa's crimson lips as she reached for the stem of her glass and sipped.

"Well, that's wonderful dear," Druella broke the stillness with her blessing for her daughter.

" _Wonderful?_ " Bellatrix spat, hardly the vision of eloquence she'd been expected to be whilst sitting at the table. Her father shot her a withering look in warning.

"What your mother means is that it's so rare for our kind to find love even in the best of circumstances," Cygnus cut in. "And finding love in a politically and socially beneficial marriage is almost unheard of."

Her mother cut in, "we're just so pleased that the two of you have managed to forge a significant connection in such a short amount of time. Our family hasn't seen a proper soul bond performed at a wedding in years."

Well. That didn't go _quite_ as she had expected.

Narcissa immediately began occluding, throwing herself headfirst into a last-ditch effort of self-preservation. Although there couldn't possibly be many more ways for the Fates to make her look and feel like a fool in the eyes of her family, she'd rather not risk challenging them.

The topic of conversation shortly changed subjects – much to no one's surprise. Druella was much more of a sappy romantic than she would initially let on, but fresh off the heels of one daughter's marriage and another's engagement, she basked rather flamboyantly in the afterglow of it all. It almost made Narcissa feel guilty about having to tell them that she was going to be breaking her engagement.

Almost.

Now that she had a rather promising way out of the travesty that would have been her future marriage without her father suffering the consequences, she had a hard time feeling much of anything but relief. Except for when she was around Nott himself, where she only felt the urge to hex him. Like right now.

Despite Bella and Rodolphus practically dominating the rest of the conversation at dinner, the pointed stares given by her sister were not lost on Narcissa. Anytime she'd glance up from her plate – or even more rarely contributed to the discussion – her eyes would always be met by Bella's scrutiny.

 _"What?"_ Narcissa silently mouthed to her sister when her gaze had been caught again, and their tablemates were too wrapped up in their conversation to notice.

Bella didn't give a vocal response. Instead, her dark eyes pointed like daggers toward Thomas' arm, his hand placement concealed by the table, and then darted back to her again – as if to say " _what the hell is he still doing here?_ "

"-Is that true, Narcissa?" Their mother's voice sliced into their silent back-and-forth when the blonde realized that she'd been behaving rudely by not paying attention to their conversation. She instantly wanted to sink into the floor and silently prayed for a deity to strike her down. Druella Black was a stickler for adhering to what she deemed to be proper social behavior, and Narcissa knew that she stood a better chance of being shown mercy by an omniscient god rather than her own mother who might have felt personally slighted.

Instead, she sat up straight, shoulders back, and turned to acknowledge her mother in the way that had been hammered into her head by all of her childhood etiquette classes. 

"Forgive me, mother, but could you please repeat that?" 

Druella opened her mouth to speak, but Cygnus was quick to barge in. "Rodolphus said that Abraxas' son joined them for their Ministry meeting. Lucius is his name, correct?"

Narcissa nodded slowly – instantly hyper aware of her own movements. Lucius' name was the last one that she'd expected to hear that night, and she knew that she needed to tread carefully.

"He also said that the Malfoy boy spoke rather fondly of you," Druella finally tacked on, carefully eyeing her youngest daughter. 

"Did he, now?" Thomas chimed in. His eyes had narrowed and he leaned over in his seat to prop his chin on a fist.

Narcissa peered over at her sister and newly-minted brother-in-law with a look of such disdain that it most likely burned like acid. Now that her family was under the impression that she intended to bind her soul to Thomas, she wasn't entirely sure about how this would all unfold.

Rodolphus was already groveling and peeking over at his wife who was sneering at him from the corner of her eye, looking as though she was seriously contemplating smacking him in the back of the head.

"This comes as no shock to me, unfortunately," Thomas declared in a wistful tone, his voice carrying across the table toward the head chair where Cygnus sat. "I'm afraid that Malfoy has been pining after my Nari for years now."

" _Years?"_ The voices of Narcissa, Bellatrix, Druella, and Cygnus all sounded in unison, each carrying varied levels of volume and incredulity.

Thomas sat back in his chair and looked every bit of the smug bastard that he'd always been; brow raised, slight upturn to his lips, and using the hand that wasn't currently groping her leg beneath the table to capture the stem of his wine glass.

Narcissa could hardly believe the audacity that it took for this boy to comfortably waltz into another wizard's home, molest the thigh of the aforementioned wizard's daughter at the dining table, and then appear pompous when expounding upon said daughter's potential suitor. His gall alone would have been impressive if it hadn't been for the fact that Thomas _knew_ that he was well below her station, and the insolent tosspot was flaunting it all just for the sake of it.

"Thankfully, she's turned him down every time he's made an advance on her. Isn't that right, darling?" While Nott laid it on thick with the terms of endearment, his eyes hungrily scanned Narcissa up and down.

She turned her head toward the same direction the Thomas did, desperate for her mother or father to speak up and put him in his place. Instead, she was met with the dubious glares of her parents – eyes completely trained on her and not a single care in the world for the behavior of the boy next to her.

"I fail to see why she would need to turn him down several times," Cygnus grumbled. "Does the Malfoy boy know of your engagement?"

"He's needlessly persistent and simply refuses 'no' as an answ– " Thomas started to answer, but was quickly cut off by his fiancée.

" _Trust_ me, father. Thomas has made everyone at school very aware of our engagement," she practically hissed the response. An overwhelming anger coiled tighter and tighter in her chest and gathered with heat beneath her cheekbones. She dared a rapid glance back at Bellatrix and was relieved to see that her sister appeared to be seething just as much as she had been.

Cygnus cleared his throat. "Good. Your mother and I wouldn't want anyone thinking that they could come along and sully your value to this arrangement."

The blonde's lips twisted into a small smile. By nature, Slytherins were cunning and opportunistic – and Narcissa simply couldn't pass on the opportunity to take advantage of the gift that her father had just laid at her feet.

"You have nothing to worry about in that regard, father," she blinked innocently at the patriarch before redirecting a fiery gaze to Nott and leveling his grotesque smirk. "Especially being that I have to regularly remind my own fiancé that I'd like to remain pure for my wedding night."

Thomas couldn't contain his expression of bewilderment, letting the calm façade that he'd so carefully curated slip.

"I've had to remind him several times during this meal alone – but really, we're so madly in love that he just can't resist groping my thigh beneath the dining table."

Simultaneously, a sharp gasp escaped Druella's lips, while a fork full of pasta tumbled back onto Cygnus' plate with a sharp clatter after a coughing fit had seized him.

Narcissa allowed for an innocent chuckle. "In fact, he's doing it right now."

With her parents still attempting to capture their thoughts and coherently string them together into sentences, Bellatrix's laugh seemed to act as the punctuation for the evening. Rodolphus cycled between visible confusion and looking like he wanted to turn to dust from embarrassment. 

Druella sent several warnings in Bella's direction telling her to cease her laughter. All the while, Cygnus dabbed his napkin against his mouth and readjusted his tie before turning to Thomas with a stern brow, trying to regain control of the room.

"I'd like to respectfully ask you to move seats, Mister Nott," he said.

"Pardon?" Thomas asked, eyes narrowed.

Cygnus blinked. "I said that I'd like you to move seats, away from my daughter. Preferably across the table."

"Mother, may I have a word with you?" Narcissa interjected. Her eyes were wide and begged for her mother to pull her as far away from the silent battle between the man at the head of the table and the boy at her side. Just as both women began to rise from their chairs, it felt like the world had turned on its axis. 

Thomas chuckled, a hint of a smirk playing on his lips. "Or what?"

If Narcissa had any remaining doubts about the validity of Thomas' claim in regard to an Unbreakable Vow, her father's rare silence in response to another man's flagrant disrespect would have served as more than enough proof.

It was as if Narcissa's shoes had been bound to the floor by a sticking charm, or like she'd been seized by a body binding charm. She wasn't sure if she wanted run from the embarrassment of the evening or if she wanted to land another punch straight where Lucius had left his own mark. Either way, she felt stuck. Frozen.

In the instant that she finally felt herself begin to muster the strength to move, her mother's hand gripped her arm and pulled her from the dining room. 

The moment that they arrived to her bedroom, the first thing Narcissa noticed was the empty chair in her grandmother's portrait – evident that she must have heard the heated conversation in the dining room and wanted no part in it, _especially_ since she knew the subject matter.

After passing through the threshold of Narcissa's bedroom, Druella released her arm, shut the door, leaned against the frame, and pinched the bridge of her nose. A pose like this was one that Narcissa wouldn't have blinked an eye at if it had been one of her housemates in the Slytherin Common Room – but to see her mother doing it, the very picture of poise and elegance, it was nearly enough to make her forget about the situation that they'd just escaped from.

"Sweet Circe, Narcissa," her mother grumbled.

Escaped, but not abandoned.

"Mother– "

"I've got a feeling that I know what your need for this blood magic book is, but I'd like to hear it directly from you." She pushed off the wall and stepped to meet her daughter in the center of the room with her arms crossed and a stern countenance adorning her face.

"Mothe– "

"And I'm sure it directly correlates to the fact that your grandmother– " she pointed to the empty portrait. " –is nowhere to be seen." She crossed her arms again. "So don't lie to me."

Narcissa closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I know about father's Unbreakable Vow."

"Narcissa Black, do you have any idea how dangerous blood magic– "

"Yes," she replied without any hesitation. "But to me, the risks outweigh my other option."

"We've tried very hard to restore respect back to the name of Black ever since Andromeda's disgusting betrayal," she explained with exasperation.

"And we'll have even _more_ respect when I'm bound to– " Narcissa caught herself, and then hesitated to finish the sentence.

"Abraxas' son, I'm presuming?" She finished her daughter's statement with a raised brow.

Narcissa nodded.

Druella brought her hand back up to her face. "Does your sister know?"

"About the soul bond or about Lucius?" She asked in a small voice as she looked down at her feet.

Her mother closed her eyes and mumbled something under her breath.

Off to the side of the room and above the fireplace, Irma returned to her chair and sat with her hands pressed into her lap. She watched the remainder of the scene unfold with remarkable stoicism. 

"I'm not going to be the one to tell your father. That job will be yours and yours alone," Druella stated with a cold intonation. 

After a brief, upward glance to the heavens and another inaudible grumble, Druella straightened her spine and exited her daughter's bedroom with the intention that she'd start to work out how to break the news to her father.

However, Narcissa had no such plans. Instead, she traipsed over to the side of her bed until her knees touched the edge and then she fell forward and buried her face in the blankets – too tired to let out a scream, she just breathed for a moment before rolling over and staring up into the canopy.

"He was their first choice for you, you know," the portrait said. 

"Thomas?" Narcissa asked with no attempt to mask the disgust in her voice. "Yes, well, sorry that they won't be getting their way."

"No," Irma said sweetly. "The Malfoy boy."

She froze in place again, but this episode only seemed to last for a fraction of a second.

"That frame has gone and made you barmy, grandmother."

Irma chuckled. "Whenever they were finalizing the decision for Bellatrix, Abraxas' boy was at the top of their list for you – but then your mother recalled you saying that you had no interest in him at the time. Besides, she saw your relationship with that handsy git starting to bloom and she wanted to respect it."

Narcissa was silent.

"And whenever his letter with the dowry was the first to come in, your mother and father decided it would be a waste of time to look at any of the other letters." Irma's chuckle rolled into a laugh. "Your reputation for being hardheaded has only gotten worse over the years, you know?"

"I prefer the term _'independent,'_ thanks."

"Yes, well, they were under the assumption that you wanted to be with the Nott boy. So they did what they thought you wanted."

"Leave it to _our_ family to be the only members of the Sacred Twenty-Eight to take their teenage daughter's wants into consideration," Narcissa groaned into her pillow after she rolled back over.

"It could be worse," Irma reassured her descendant with a wistful sigh. "You make them very proud, you know?"

Narcissa released a dubious sounding hum. "I didn't know that pride manifested in the form of explosive and dysfunction family dinners."

"No, that's just families in general, my love," her grandmother replied with a warm grin. 

After several deep breaths, Narcissa began to rise to her feet again. All she wanted to do was double and triple check the wards on her bedroom that kept Thomas out, and then go take a bath and go to bed. The following day couldn't come quickly enough.

"I've had the elves put bookmarks in the pages that'll benefit you the most," Irma chirped when her granddaughter's hand found the doorknob. 

She looked over her shoulder and met the painted eyes of her grandmother and her greatest confidant. "Thank you," she said with the utmost sincerity.

"And _please_ promise on your magic that you won't mess it up," Grandmother Irma reminded her with a trained rigidity. "I've only got one empty seat next to me in this Salazar-forsaken portrait, and I'd like it to be my own husband – _not_ my son!"

Narcissa let out a small giggle. "I promise."


End file.
